Elements Of Romantic Aspect
Stanza 1
Man it's cold out here -- the poem's speaker starts by describing how the night is so frigid that even the animals are feeling it. It's also quiet. Specifically, it's the Eve of St. Agnes. In the meantime, it's not just owls and sheep who are getting cold: we now have a very chilly Beadsman, semi-paralyzed by the cold, who's praying. Presumably he's inside because there's a picture of the Virgin Mary. A beadsman is not, in fact, a man made of. The speaker uses a simile to compare his "frosted breath" to incense from a censer, which would be used in a Catholic mass service. The steam of his breath in the chill is loaded with prayers, going straight up to heaven "without a ...
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to pray for them. Even though they're made of stone, these statues aren't exempt from the cold; they "seem to freeze." Even though they're frozen in a state of constant prayer, they're also stuck in a perpetual state of purgatory. Purgatory is basically the penalty box of the Christian afterlife: if you die and you're in God's good graces but still have to atone for some brushes with church law, your soul has to pay penance in Purgatory for a while before it can whiz on up to heaven. The Beadsman's "weak spirit" "fails to think" about how cold the statues themselves might feel. Here they're being personified by the speaker to seem like real people.
Stanza 3
Beadsman's exits the chapel o' creepy statues, he's greeted with music -- Music, actually -- which has a golden tongue. Music doesn't really have a tongue of course, so we get more personification here. His enjoyment of the Music is cut off, though, because his death is approaching. He's cold, tired, stuck praying for ...
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way of describing how incurably romantic young minds can be, before the harsh realities of life set in. And unlike the rest of the revelers, she feels very real. She's been spending the entire frigid day thinking (unlike the other party-guests, she's actually connected to the physical, freezing outside world). She seems sad, contemplating (brooding) about love and the stories she's been told about St. Agnes by old ladies.
Stanza 6
These old ladies have been telling our young Lady that, on St. Agnes' Eve, virgin girls can have visions of their loves (future husbands, as the myth actually goes) at midnight if they follow a few rituals.
What rituals might these be? We get a ...
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Elements Of Romantic Aspect. (2019, January 30). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Elements-Of-Romantic-Aspect/106938
"Elements Of Romantic Aspect." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 30 Jan. 2019. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Elements-Of-Romantic-Aspect/106938>
"Elements Of Romantic Aspect." Essayworld.com. January 30, 2019. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Elements-Of-Romantic-Aspect/106938.
"Elements Of Romantic Aspect." Essayworld.com. January 30, 2019. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Elements-Of-Romantic-Aspect/106938.
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