Comparing The Eve of St. Agnes and Romeo and Juliet

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The Eve of St. Agnes certainly progresses and ends like a romance. Porphyro, a willful youth, is determined to gain the love of Madeline, who is also searching for love by mystical means; they eventually end up in the same bed, knowing their love will be spurned by their families, and run off together. This motif has a familiar echo to one of Shakespeare's greatest known works, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. But is it so simple? How do these two compare, truthfully? There is something disquieting in the cold wind that blows while the youth fulfill the flames of their passions, in the deaths of the Beadsman and Angela, or the violent dreams of the Baron, forlorn in the loss of his Madeline. Does Keats merely make tribute to this classic idea of young lovers, or is this his personal commentary on their union, harking to an inspirational writer that is essential to the English writing tradition? And is it truly a happy ending? By comparing these two works, one will find that Keats believed the ending to Romeo and Juliet was necessary, and more hopeful than his own. To start this argument, it is best to see how the two works line up in relative similarities. Surely, the basic plot structures remain the same. Porphyro, much like the young Romeo, braves a banquet hosted by his mortal enemies, “the whole bloodthirsty race” (Keats s.11) to find love, woos said love, and runs off to be together and marry. Other small things compare as well; Both authors bestow the title of pilgrim on Porphyro, but admittedly in different ways. This is the first name that Romeo is bestowed by Juliet, “pilgrim” and much like Porphyro, sees his soon-to-belover as possessing saintly qualities (I.4.210-222). Porphyro, ... ... middle of paper ... ... Gray, Erik. "Indifference and Epistolarity in The Eve of St. Agnes." Romanticism 5.2 (1999): 127. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2014. Keats, John. “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 8th edition. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 888-898. Print. MacCracken, Henry Noble. “The Source of Keats's 'Eve of St. Agnes'”. Modern Philology 5.2 (1907). 145-152. JSTOR. Web. 2 May 2014. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Ed. Richard Hosley. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954. Print.

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