Love on the Eve of St. Agnes

The Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt brings to life John Keats's story of forbidden romance.

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The Eve of Saint Agnes, or The Flight of Madeline and Porphyro During the Drunkenness Attending the Revelry, William Holman Hunt ca. 1848. Via Wikimedia Commons.

On the Eve of St. Agnes, a long time ago, a beautiful maiden closes her eyes and dreams of her beloved.

St. Agnes Eve, a celebration for the martyr in the darkest depths of winter, is a night for divination. Young women can perform rituals—they might go to bed without dinner, or recite the Lord’s Prayer while pinning a sleeve, or throw grain into a field while praying to the saint—and that night, they just might see their future husband as they dream.

The maiden Madeline knows exactly who she hopes to meet in her dream: the handsome Porphyro, a knight of a rival household. All the while, Porphyro is sneaking into the castle, risking that he will be caught by the feasting revelers, in the hopes of seeing Madeline:

My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!

Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?

Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?

Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest

After so many hours of toil and quest,

A famish’d pilgrim,—sav’d by miracle.¹

John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes, written in 1819 and published the following year, takes a page from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. As Romeo’s lips are “two blushing pilgrims” eager to worship at Juliet’s shrine, Porphyro assumes the role of the devotee to his own forbidden love. Before declaring his feelings, Porphyro rouses Madeline from her dream. Not quite asleep, not quite awake, she marvels at the vision before her:

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,

Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:

There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d

The blisses of her dream so pure and deep

At which fair Madeline began to weep,

And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;

While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;

Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,

Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.²

We are in the realm of the Romantics. Romanticism is an artistic and literary movement that developed during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The movement evolved as a reaction to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which brought technological advancements as well as horrific labor conditions and increasing disconnection from the natural world. (In the face of social media fatigue and anxieties regarding artificial intelligence, several writers on Substack have argued that we are entering a new Romantic era today.)

The Romantics, as we’ve explored in previous essays, believed in the value of individual, subjective experience. They were fascinated by the sublime, the uncanny, and all-things medieval. They found beauty in ruins.