Discuss and Illustrate Keats’s poetic skills in his treatment of romance elements in ‘Lamia’ and ‘The Eve Of St. Agnes’

Discuss and Illustrate Keats’s poetic skills in his treatment of romance elements in ‘Lamia’ and ‘The Eve Of St. Agnes’ Lamia and the eve of St.agnes show are the embodiment of Keats ‘s ambiguity about the eternal war between reality and imagination. The ‘ever-smitten Hermes’ is frantically searching for a nymph without success. This nymph whose beauty seems to be unparalleled, drove ‘hoofed satyrs’ on their knees and to whom ‘tritons poured pearls’. This fantastical romance is surrounded by beauty and abundance. In fact it is claimed that ‘real are the dream of the gods’. The fact that the master of illusion herself is the artifice of this union is a further proof to which realm it belongs to. However the narrator seems to be confused of what is real or not; ‘it was no dream; or say a dream it was’. Apollonius and his ‘cold philosophy’ would definitely argue against it being real but by the end of the poem we are not so sure about siding with him. Where he is absolute truth, Lamia is absolute illusion. She metamorphosis into a beautiful woman, the woman she claimed she once was. The narrator questions her novelty as well; ‘A full-born beauty new an exquisite?’, however she did this in spite of ‘scarlet pain’. Her love for Lycius is real and she deserves being loved back. Her making everything opportune for this to happen is not much of an illusion, after all she renounced her immortality for his love. Their love is consumed in an enchanted ‘palace’ away from everyone else. This aspect of romance, where characters a literally lost in each other, adds to the perception of deep and powerful romance. Romance has nothing to do with ‘cold philosophy’, it is more of an illusion kind of thing. Therefore their romance is real, however it exists outside reality. And this is where it faces the ultimate test. But ‘love in a hut, with water and crust / is - love, forgive us! – cinders, ashes and dust;’, their love is not strong enough and it does not survive in the real world. It seems that their relationship was only fit to exist in an illusory world for it was bred there. However there seem to be no romance in Apollonius’s speech and his ‘cold philosophy’ either. Through his words Lycius’s arms are emptied of ‘delight’. As Lycius dies in his ‘marriage robe’, we are assured that romance has no place in a world where reason reigns for it defies its immutable laws. But it cannot survive as an absolute illusion either, for it is the stuff of mortal human beings. In The eve of St. Agnes the setting is typically romantic. Like in “Lamia” we have the castle, this rich dwelling is adorned with riches of all kind. We have the chapel and the Knights. The revelry is dressed in ‘plume’ and ‘tiara’. We also have a hero who tries to reach the object of his dreams inside ‘love’s fev’rous citadel’. Like Lycius, Madeline is the victim of a carefully crafted plot aimed at her affections. In order to seduce her, Porphyro resorts to treachery. However like Lamia, he

exposes himself to great risk, for he has to sneak inside ‘love’s fev’rous citadel’ where ‘barbarian hordes, / Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords dwelled’. This implies that his love is genuine, thus his passion true. However we are led to contrast the romance being consume inside the Madeline’s chamber, with the tempest outside. The chamber is synonymous with illusion. Keats repeatedly uses the silver/moon imagery, representing cold/dream situations to imply this. Romance inside the world of dream is better and more intense; ‘how pallid, chill, and drear’ she tells the real Porphyro. The Porphyro of her dream had ‘looks immortal’ and was a better lover. This holds true also to the storm raging outside, which represents their love in the real world which is contrasted with the ‘lustrous salvers’ and ‘broad golden fringe upon the carpet’. Like with “Lamia” we are let to believe that romance of dreams is a lot warmer and charming the romance in the real world. Even though they manage to get away to the real world, there is not much euphoria about their fate. The switch from the romantic dream to reality is characterised by the ‘storm’, dreams ‘ many a woe’, coffins, ashes and death. In both romances, we are left with the sour taste of uncertainty, feeling emphatically entwined with the ambiguous views Keats holds about romance.