The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats was written in 1819 and contains 42 stanzas of what one can deduce is a romantic love story, but John Keats includes more than just this generic genre. John Keats suggests that by utilizing and then complicating “fairytale” conventions we can distinguish an ambiguous relation to mortality. This relationship to mortality can be seen in the different characters, Porphyro and Madeline’s relationship, and at the ending of this particular literature. Not only does this literature have a general fairytale plot, but conventions such as "hoodwinked with faery fancy," (stanza 8), "Thou must hold water like a witch’s sieve,/ And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays…," (stanza 14), or “…tis an elfin-storm from faery land…” (stanza 39) are used to imply that this story has a fairytale nature. On the other hand, if we take a closer look at John Keats’s work, we see lots of “dark” imagery that leads us to ponder the topic of mortality. This underlying relation to mortality can be glimpsed when we examine some of the different characters.
The characters in this tale can be easily correlated to characters found in a standard fairytale. For example your hero is Porphyro. He is the protagonist in this tale and has to persevere to win a fair maiden’s heart (Madeline being the fair maiden). The fairytale genre is shown because we assume Porphyro is a good, noble guy. Many people argue he is not because of the wording Keats uses that implies Porphyro is not the “ideal prince,” just mortal like us all. His mortality flickers through when we start to see him no longer as our “prince charming” and start to question his morals and objectives. An example of when we start to doubt our hero is when he starts to think about Madeline in a more vivid way, “Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose/ Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart…” His mortality can be seen because he is acting human (full of emotions like lust) and this loses some of the fairytale facade. Keats makes us debate this issue because when Porphyro is trying to convince Angela to help him to get to Madeline he gives the impression of being very sincere and noble when he says, “I will not harm her, by all saints I swear…” This leads us to think of him as noble and “princely” again; linking back to Keats original fairytale genre. We can also see a relation to mortality between Porphyro and Madeline because of the relationship they have.
Porphyro and Madeline’s relationship is very ambiguous in this story because we do not know if this is a cheery fairytale kind of story or not. Debated today has been the theory that Porphyro committed a “rape and kidnap” hoodwink on innocent Madeline. This is supported because Madeline says to Porphyro, “No dream, alas! alas! And woe is mine!/ Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.” We can deduce that she thinks she is still dreaming and made love to Porphyro when she is unsure of her consciousness. Would this not be considered rape? Or perhaps a loss of innocence on Madeline’s part, because she slept with him willingly? That Porphyro would take her when she is unclear of her situation shows us how mortal Porphyro is (not your noble prince) as well as how Madeline may not be the vision of innocence a fairytale princess would be. Two other characters that are fairytale based, but with a twist that leads us to think of them differently, are Angela (the lady who helps Porphyro sneak into Madeline’s chambers) and the Beadsman who is introduced at the beginning of the story and is touched on again at the very end.
You have your helpful fairy godmother, Angela, who helps Porphyro smuggle into Madeline’s chambers. We see she cares for Porphyro, “-Alas me! Flit!/ Flit like a ghost away…” by telling him to leave before anyone sees him and he gets himself into trouble. She shows an ambiguous relation to mortality because we do not know if Porphyro’s intentions are honorable, therefore if Angela is justified in sending him to Madeline’s bedchamber. To see this literature as only a fairytale is fortified when Angela helps Porphyro get to Madeline, thus implying she trusts him and believes his intentions to be honorable. Since we, as readers, cannot understand the full emphasis’s Porphyro would use to convince Angela, we cannot understand if his intentions are just or not. We are capable of trusting in Angela’s gained wisdom that she can tell he is sincere. If we believe this, then we are still considering this literature to be a fairytale genre with Porphyro’s reputation untarnished by how human he acts and thinks. In any other fairytale Angela would help Porphyro without our (as readers) feelings of unease that this might not be the best choice for Madeline, depending what our standpoint of Porphyro is. If we think of him as still a noble man then Angela’s decision is blameless, but if we consider him as less than worthy Angela was evidently hasty in her acceptance of Porphyro and his objectives.
Included in this tale is a Beadsman who helps start and wrap up the story. Many fairytales have weddings in them as a link to religion, but Keats’s link to religion is this Beadsman. In Keats’s work he starts and ends his tale with scenes of a Beadsman praying for sinners and then, in the end, “slept among his ashes cold.” (stanza 42). The relation to mortality can be seen by how the Beadsman’s life is at an end. Putting religion so obviously in the play makes us think of our own faiths and mortality. When we consider where the Beadsman is going in his afterlife (or if he has an afterlife at all) is another subtle hint at mortality that Keats uses. This forces us to think about mortality in comparison to the characters in the play and how relatable they are instead of like the perfect models in fairytales. The characters in Keats’s work are more mortal than normal fairytale characters would be and thus more relatable to you and me. Angela is also at the end of her life by the end of this tale. Showing Angela’s mortality John Keats shows how mortality can strike anyone and how we must continue to consider our own mortality.
Everyone is susceptible to the mortality of the human body, even those who do good things. Angela “helped” (supposing we agree that this is just a classic fairytale story) Porphyro get into Madeline’s chambers yet she still could not escape the inevitable. This makes us consider our own mortality and how fragile we really are. Angela was elderly as we can see by the line “Angela the old” (stanza 42). Thus her life was already foretold to be ending, but with her being the “fairy godmother” in this tale it was not expected of Keats to create such a despondent ending with so much reference to mortality. In the end of the play John Keats does not end in a typical fairytale manner. No, instead he finishes with “These lovers fled away into the storm…” meaning Porphyro and Madeline are fleeing into a stormy night. Not a typical riding into the setting sun sort of ending. This shows us how mortality follows us and will follow Porphyro and Madeline even after the tale stops being told to us. John Keats use of conventions such as “ages long ago” instills the reader with his fairytale front. Meanwhile, he ends with his last stanza with a very upfront sense of imminent mortality when we see the Beadsman and Angela wrestle with the their life forces, “Angela the old/Died palsy-twitch’d, with meager face deform;/ The Beadsman, after thousand aves told/ For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.” To end this tale this way we are left with the lasting thoughts of mortality and what it means to each of us instead of how “happily-ever-after” Porphyro and Madeline lived.
John Keats’s use of fairytale conventions has a contrast relation to mortality. This relationship to mortality can be seen in the different characters and how if examined they can be just as mortal as any human. Porphyro and Madeline’s relationship links to mortality because Porphyro may have just raped Madeline which is supported by the idea that she did not fully understanding her situation. Or, their relationship shows Madeline’s loss of innocence because of her acceptance to Porphyro offer to make love. The ending of this particular literature has very clear connections to mortality because of all the references to Angela’s and the Beadsman’s dwindling life, leaving us with thoughts of our own inevitable mortality.