Someone once said that true love is only an illusion and can never be achieved. This is evidently shown through many elements of the poem by John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes.” Much of this poem is about the imagination and how it can blind people and make them oblivious to the true events that are occurring. We the readers can see this very easily through the portrayal of one of the main characters Madeline. The second main character Porphyro tries to authenticate her quest for a dream experience however ends up taking advantage of her while she thinks she is still dreaming. The poem does endorse how the power of Madeline’s visionary imagination can influence her and the others around her, but also that happenings outside of the dream can cause the person in the dream to be taken advantage of with out the dreamers knowledge. The truth is that Porphyro knows exactly what he is doing and instead of doing things in a honorable way, he decides to proceed in a dishonorable way and totally violates her visionary imagination.The night that is being spoken of in this poem is a night of dreams and imagination. It is supposed to be a mystical night in which young women have dreams of their one true love. Madeline takes this to a totally different level in that she totally succumbs to the mystical ability of the night and totally loses her mind. In that she doesn’t even know if she is still dreaming or if she is wake. Some interpretations of the poem say that she is wake and know what she is doing. However, I believe the contrary that she doesn’t know what she is doing. “Hoodwink’d with faery fancy.” (70) Most of what she does is due to the mystical feeling the night causes. A mind can play may tricks and the mind can make it so that it has no concept of time or whether it is wake or still dreaming. One of the few times in the book that she sort of knows that she is wake is when Porp...
