Madeline seduced Porphyro.
She did reproach him for not being romantic, and she engineered the whole defloration to force him into marrying her. Hah! Madeline is a witch.
The ritual actually worked, and it summoned Porphyro to the castle. She did see him in her dream, in a way, not in the sleeping dream, but she saw an ideal of him, which makes it a dream. Keats wrote this to mock Christianity.
And religion in general. Porphyro was the name of a rebel against Christianity. Angela also mocks Madeline's superstition. Arguably Porphyro's seduction of Madeline is a way to mock Madeline's belief that it was all a dream, thus causing her to be taken advantage of. Madeline is an opium addict.
Explains why she can't differentiate between dreams and reality. It is fitting that several Romantic literary figures were opium junkies, notably Coleridge and Thomas de Quincey. Now a new biography claims Keats was one too. Porphyro is a vampire.
Propounded by James Twitchell. Madeline's cross is supposed to ward off evil vampires, and as Porphyro trembles at this, arguably he's a vampire. The poem is a correction or fanfiction of Romeo and Juliet.
The drunkards are imply to die in the end, Angela and the beadsman both die, just as so many people in Romeo and Juliet die. The feuding family and forbidden lovers are there too. There are nurses in both works, and a priest as well (only the priest is more active in Shakespeare.) Only this is an inverse of Romeo and Juliet, as in the latter it's the lovers who die, whereas in Eve of St Agnes it's the other characters who die.Or it might be a satire of making so many people die in tragedies. It seems ludicrous in a serious person like Keats that it must be meant to be comical.
Eve of St Agnes is a moral allegory.
Why do the protagonists live and Angela and the priest die, and the warriors haunted by nightmares? It's meant to reward the lovers and punish the rest (why do it to the helpful Angela I don't know). Love makes us live. Eve of St Agnes is a celebration of youth.
Keats loved to celebrate beauty, in all his major poems. The Odes are really a theses on beauty. The young lovers live and the elder ones die. This could be a metaphor for the beauty surviving the generations (since Keats says their story is immortalised in this piece) to entertain us. The death of the old crabbed people indicates they are not celebrated anymore, hence their metaphorical death. Eve of St Agnes is based on Coleridge's Christabel.
A feud, medieval setting, a castle, two pure maidens in love and a bloodhound. Porphyro's seduction of Madeline is analogous to Geraldine's corruption of Christabel. Porphyro and Madeline sleep together; Geraldine and Christabel share a bed. Coleridge's poem is more supernatural so Keats' less magical poem may be a satire of Gothic supernatural poems. Eve of St Agnes is based on Paradise Lost.
Porphyro is Satan, Madeline is Eve. Each woman is corrupted into losing her virginity. Notice that Porphyro brings food including apples into the room (thought Madeline doesn't eat it). The tradition that lovers will bring you food in a dream could be a symbolism for giving in to temptation - therefore the dream is a prophecy of who will marry you, and take away your virginity. Hence, "Eve" in the title has a double meaning. Satan bends to Eve's ear, Porphyro plays his lute to Madeline's ear. Eve of St Agnes is a mockery of prudish virgins.
St Agnes was a saint revered for insisting on remaining a virgin. Madeline noticeably loses hers on that celebration. But she is meant to be a pure and sympathetic character so we can conclude that Keats liked a girl to express her feelings for a man honestly without false modesty. Eve of St Agnes represents the celebration of feeling and refinement.
The withered old prunes, the beadsman and Angela, who are religious, die. The amorous drunkards die too. Only the young lovers survive. The withered old prunes could represent the harsh, restrained side of the Enlightenment, who imposed severe rules on people like Keats (condemning him for writing classical poetry because he didn't know Greek). The drunkards represent unrefined and coarse people who give in to vulgar impulses easily. The romantic and passionate young lovers represent the genuine feelings, beauty and purity of Romanticism. The poem is a parody of Romanticism especially the Gothic
Angela carries a wand like a witch but she is not a witch or a villainess, laughing at readers' expectations in Gothic novels. Gothic novels tend to have Catholic priests and superstition, especially evil Catholic priests, but here the priest (it's the medieval era, so presumably he is Catholic) is supposed to be a neutral character, again turning down our expectations. Then superstitions and legends are important in Gothic novels. Here, the superstitions turn out to be false. Also, in Gothic novels the villains want to rape the virginal heroine, but here it's the heroine who gets the hero to seduce her. Instead of a wicked rapist like Ambrosio in The Monk, a gothic novel, Porphyro is an ardent young man and the hero who wishes to respectably marry Madeline. Keats presents these desires as normal to young men. In the poem, Madeline's seduction is due to her deceiving herself the consummation was all a dream, possibly a mockery of Gothic heroines whose fate is blamed on others, instead of their helpless selves. Ann Radcliffe's dull heroines never help themselves, and Keats was a fan of hers. Porphyro is "beyond a mortal man impassion'd far," which would indicate he's a creature, but as he is clearly a man, Keats is poking fun at the idea that you have to be a monster to seduce girls, even though in reality ordinary men can do it. Porphyro's character is also complex, unlike one-dimensional heroes and villains in Gothic novels.