“‘The Eve of St. Agnes’ doesn’t possess a clearly defined tragic protagonist. Indeed, the tragic events would seem to occur to the more peripheral characters.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?According to Aristotelian principles, a tragic hero or heroine is defined by a clear outline of characteristics; they should be a male of high status who

According to Aristotle, the hero of a tragedy is defined as having distinct characteristics: he must be a male of high status who is essentially admirable and good, yet he must have imperfections, usually appearing in the form of hubris. The storyline of the hero should also adhere to the following structure: a hamartia leading to a peripeteia, after which the hero has anagnorisis. However, despite this recognisance, the hero cannot stop his doom and suffers a fate far worse than what is deserved. The hero is usually emotionally or physically ravaged by the end, but understands their fate, and the audience in fact experiences a catharsis, finding some sort of gain. This rigid structure is hinted at in ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, however the storyline varies dramatically depending upon which character you empathise with. The knight is the immediate focus of the poem, and therefore his ‘loitering’ is at the forefront of the mind of the reader, however an entirely different view of the same series of events is available if the mind is stretched to encompass the woman of the poem. This leads to the argument that the knight is in fact not a tragic protagonist, but an antagonist who takes advantage of a woman and refuses to accept he is in the wrong. Moreover, upon close analysis, it appears to be the woman who is in fact the protagonist of the poem.

The peripheral characters – that is, the background characters of Angela and the Beadsman – are arguably subjected to a far more tragic sequence of events than the main characters – Porphyro and Madeline. Whilst the occurrence of tragic events in a character’s plotline does not necessarily mean they are a tragic protagonist, it could be argued that Angela is a tragic protagonist, as her plotline could be considered to adhere more to Aristotle’s principles (of which plot is the most important) than any other character. Furthermore, to state that Porphyro is, if not the main tragic protagonist, a protagonist in itself, can in fact be disputed. An interpretation of the poem is his stealing Madeline, who is a victim as she will now face oppression at the hands of her supposed lover, a trickster who fooled not only her but also Angela. Meanwhile, the Beadsman is a character uninvolved in action thus, while he appears to be good-hearted, he is discounted