For Monday: English Romantic
Poetry
Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (pp.205-217)
NOTE: Try to read the entire poem for
Monday, though I will only focus on the first half of the poem below and in our
class discussion. Remember, even though
this poem tells a story, don’t get dazzled by the plot; look for the metaphors
and how the poem expresses some of the ideas about life, love, beauty, Nature,
and art that we saw in “ Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Wordsworth’s poems.
Answer 2 of the 4 questions below:
1. What is the general tone of this
poem? How does Keats create an overall
mood through his descriptions/metaphors of the castle and the people in
it? In other words, if this were a song
(and all poetry is closely related to music), what kind of song would it
be?
2. In Stanza 2, the Beadsman studies the
statues of dead noblemen and women in the same way that Keats studied the urn
in “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” However, how
do these works of art inspire a different reaction in the priest? What does he see/feel when he looks into
their eyes? Consider, too, that the tomb
statues and the urn both have associations with death.
3. In Stanzas 5-8, how is Madeline
like one of the figures on the urn? What
makes her divorced from time and the living world? What does she “see” during that evening’s
festivities that others do not?
4. In Stanza 9, Keats writes that
Porphyro “implores/All saints to give him sight of Madeline,/But for one moment
in the tedious hours,/That he might gaze and worship all unseen;/Perchance
speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been” (207). Is this romantic or disturbing? Does this sound like a good beginning for a
“Romeo and Juliet” narrative of love?
Cera Miller
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2
- When the priest looks at the statues, he feels coldness. The statues are stone; they are forever frozen in place and will never move. Keats calls them “the sculptur’d dead” and describes them as “emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails”. The idea of “Purgatory” is unsettling, and I think that is how Keats wants the readers to feel.
Question 3
- She is “divorced from time and the living world” because she is thinking about that night’s slumber, and the dream it will bring; no one and nothing can reach her. She is solely focused on having a vision of who her love is and does not take part of the party around her, brushing off and ignoring the attentions of possible suitors. She is “seeing” her future, or the chance to see her future (her lover) and the others only see a girl with her head in the clouds.
Great responses--to think of the dead celebrated in statues/tombs as stuck in Purgatory is unsettling and not what the artists intended! And yet, the perfect of art can be an illusion. For living people it would be inhuman to be without flaw, frozen in the height of beauty or power. It wouldn't satisfy and would be cold and horrible. Note that the young people all believe in these ideals...for now.
Delete2. The persists see the statues and relates to them as if they are frozen in purgatory. As if this is their punishment, that the Will be forever trapped in a statue, and never able to move on.
ReplyDelete4. The face they he is watching from afar makes this a lot more creepy than romantic. If you were to see this in real life, you'd be thinking "What is that creep doing?" Although if they were to get together it could be looked back upon as a romantic moment, and he would say something like "I knew I loved you, before I ever even spoke to you."
Good responses--the Beadsman sees the darker side of art, the idea that perfection can more of a curse (a prison) than freedom or joy. Neither of the young people in the poem can see this. Perhaps this suggests that age/wisdom isn't always a bad thing...it can help us appreciate the true beauty of the world, now that we are divorced from the innocence of childhood.
DeleteChaz Sanders
ReplyDelete2) The Beadsman sees the statues in a much more morbid light than Keats saw the figures on the urn. He sees them frozen in place forever, never being able to move. They were forced to languish in "purgatorial rails" constantly in torment, and it causes his spirit to fail, overcome with hopelessness.
3) Madeline is like a figure on the urn because she seems almost timeless, even though she is mortal. She is divorced from time and the living world by her thoughts of the future, she can not focus on anything else. She longs for the visions of her lover, so much that she ignores reality. She sees the possibilities of the future that others do not, but it is also about what she does not see. She can't seem to see the reality of what's in front of her.
Darryn York
ReplyDelete2. It started off romantic such as Romeo & Juliet. when Keat says "Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire for Madeline" expresses how interested porphyro is in Madeline. Then later in the stanza Keat says
4. "That he might gaze and worship all unseen" which is still romantic-ish, because he then mentions what he hope to do with her.