Eve of St Agnes

Eve of St Agnes

imagery
1. "scultpur'd dead"
2. "imprisoned in black, purgatorial rails"
3. " a thought came like a full-blown rose"
4. " there were sleeping dragons all around"
Themes
1. Love
  1. "heart on fire"
  2. "a throbbing star"
2. Dreams
  1. " she dreams awake"
  2. "poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd "
  3. "Into her Dream he melted"
3. Rivalry
4. Beauty
  1. "fragrant bodice"
  2. "mermaid in sea-weed"
5. nature
6. mythology/magic
  1. " Hoodwink'd with faery fancy"
  2. "my lady fair the conjuror plays"
7. Stillness
8. Death
  1. "Died palsy-twitch'd"
  2. "slept among his ashes cold"
Tragic Elements
1. Victims
  1. The Beadsman
  2. Angela
  3. Madeline
2. Tragic hero
  1. Madeline as good, innocent but atypical
  2. Lorenzo: morally ambiguous but heroic persona
3. Peripeteia
  1. Removal from somewhere safe to uncertainty
  2. union of rivals
4. Hamartia
  1. Madeline's niavity, innocence
  2. Angela's trust
5. Anagnorisis
  1. Realisation that it is not a dream
    1. "No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!"
6. Myopia
  1. Madeline's blind trust of mythology
Structure and Form
1. narrative poem
2. traditional spenserian stanzas create medieval feel
  1. romantic
  2. slow-moving
  3. "still life"
  4. sense of authorit through artificial aging
Use of Devices
1. pathetic fallacy
  1. "the hare limped trembling"
  2. Role of fate, nature
2. Author presence through comments/exclamations
  1. "Ah bitter chill it was!"
  2. sense of inevitability
School of Thought
1. Feminism
  1. Potentially a rape?
    1. " As though a tongueless nightingale should swell Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell"

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	Created by Charlotte Hall over 7 years ago