Eve of St Agnes.....attack on religion?

[Steen]

I was reading the beginning of Eve of St Agnes and was wondering if the one religous figure (The Beadsman) is represetative of his view of religon as a whole.
The beadsman is pious, devoted, but old and dying. I was just thinking that mabye Keats saw religon as dying and therefore made the human sysmbol of religon dying as well....
What do you think?

[Saturn]

I think Keats had more of a romantic fondness for the pious old days of Medieval religion as did many of his contemporaries - Medievalism was all part of the Gothic revival taking place in all the arts, alongside the enduring Classicism of the previous generation.

[girl]

Id have to agree that religion is presented in this poem as a negative. Just look at the imagery surrounding both the beadsman and the church, everything is cold, still and lifeless, this is then sharply contrasted with the warmth, life and passion of the two lovers.
Keats presents religion as man made and thus distructable, in so much as a building can be knocked down or altered, whereas love is presented as natural and so everlasting. This runs parallel with Keats' paganistic beliefs of religion as hyperbolically elaborate yet materialistic but of nature as the evidence of a greater controlling power.