The Eve of St. Agnes

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The Eve of St. Agnes is a Romantic narrative poem of 42 Spenserian stanzas set in the Middle Ages. It was written by John Keats in 1819 and published in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820). The poem was considered by many of Keats's contemporaries and the succeeding Victorians to be one of his finest and influenced subsequent 19th-century literature. The title comes from the day (or evening) before the feast of Saint Agnes (or St. Agnes' Eve). St. Agnes, the patron saint of virgins, died a martyr in 4th-century Rome. The eve falls on 20 January; the feast day on the 21st. The divinations Keats referred to in this poem were also referred to by John Aubrey in his Miscellanies (1696) as being associated with St. Agnes' night.

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