Eve of st. agnes

            The love of Porphyro and Madeline attempts to make itself ideal by excluding everything other than its perfection and working through the imagination to achieve an ideal. The lovers work to create and maintain a paradise for their love, while time works against their temporary havens.
             The love of Porphyro for Madeline is poetically beautiful and has a romantic storyline. Both lovers are of moderately noble birth but their families are currently at odds, as in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."" Porphyro thinks of Madeline as an ideal and sees her as a "seraph fair-(Keats 276). Because their families would never allow them to marry, Porphyro envisions Madeline as something not only highly attractive but also as an unattainable challenge for him. Porphyro's love presents and creates Madeline as the perfect woman; this is evident in his words and responses. He sneaks into the house "with heart on fire For Madeline-(75-6). He is practically swooning for her, as he prays, "'Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite. Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes' sake, Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache'-(277-9). As she finally wakes, she seems like an angelic vision to him, and "Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.""(297) In her presence, he acts as if he is not worthy of her love. It is as if Madeline is too perfect and pure to love him. He begins to build up his imagination, making Madeline the center of his ideal. Porphyro prays, "But for one moment in the tedious hours, That he might gaze and worship all unseen-(79-80). He worships her with a religious fervor, and all things associated with her become likened to relics. Madeline and her bedchamber are described as having enchanted qualities and presented as something mystical and divine in comparison to the rest of the mortal world. The qualities of Madeline's bedchamber and Porphyro's imagination work together, and begin building the room into a favored place for the lovers.