Blurred Lines between Imagination and Reality

While reading “The Eve of St. Agnes” I kept asking myself, why is the speaker telling this story. Or rather, why is this speaker telling us this story. The poem begins with a Beadsman praying in the woods who stumbles upon a lively party in a castle on the eve of the feast of St. Agnes, the patron saint of virgins. Inside the castle at the party is a young lady named Madeline who is eager to go to sleep so she can dream of her lover, Porphyro. While Madeline is fervently waiting going to sleep, Porphyro concocts a plan to trick and older woman named Angela into letting his hide in Madeline’s closet until she goes to sleep so he can convince her to run away with him. The poem ends with Madeline and Porphyro seemingly successfully running away. The speaker does not reveal what happens to Madeline and Porphyro after they escape, but he does include that the Beadsman and Angela both die. This poem left me confused and pondering many questions. The significance of the narrative within this poem is unclear, the characters and speaker are not particularly complex and the ending reveals nothing of the star-crossed lovers’ future. Maybe all these unclear, unanswered questions are the point of the poem. The lines between fantasy, dreams, imagination and reality are continuously blurred, making a statement on how these lines are blurred in real life. Everyone has experienced waking up from a deep sleep and not realizing whether or not the dream has ended. It is also unclear if Keats’ commentary on the mysteries of the imagination were intentional or if “The Eve of St. Agnes” is a failed attempt at a romantic poem who’s only redemption was the ambiguous lines between fantasy and reality was accidental.