Seamus Perry

speaker

386 appearances 5 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 31 Aug

Seamus Perry’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 2.

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Close Readings · Narrative Poems: ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ by John Keats · 3 Aug 2026 podcast

So the background story of St.

Agnes is actually rather brutal and awful, isn't it?

And I think that Keats has that in mind, doesn't he?

Because this is a poem which, although it is full of rapture and erotic entanglement and excitement,

is also haunted by the idea of threat and violence and damage.

Saint Agnes was sent by the Roman authorities as part of her punishment for being a Christian to work in a brothel before being executed.

But miraculously, by divine intervention, she retains her virginity.

and is associated with lambs that are white as snow, which I guess is why Keats mentions the flock in Woolly Fold at the opening of the poem.

So we are being transported here into a world which is very, very unlike Keats's own world, but being transported into a Catholic world of medieval, sanctified, erotic interest.

Yeah, and one of the other things that Hunt loves about the opening, isn't it, is that description of the figures carved in the...

the woodwork of the chapel.

In the second verse, the sculpture dead on each side seemed to freeze, imprisoned in black purgatorial rails.

So Keats in this weird act of rather kind of quirky empathy is imagining what it might be like to be one of these

These carved figures.

Okay, so there we have the beadsmen.

And then, as you say, there is a party going on.

Now, Keats isn't terribly keen on the party, is he?

There's a bit of, you know, sort of class edginess often in Keats.

There's a great line in Endymion where he talks about rich people who have what he calls, in perhaps not one of his best phrases, most prevailing tinsel.

And we get by verse 5 here, the argent revelry with plume, tiara, and all rich array.

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