‘How does Rossetti tell the story in Cousin Kate’
In Cousin Kate the poet presents the reader with the idea that women have many expectations in life and are governed by men, giving them no real freedom, and that to become truly happy one must break away from social expectations. Personally I believe this poem presents Rossetti with a stage where she can speak of her resentment at the power men have and the weaknesses and few liberties that women have in the Victorian period; as in the end she takes sympathy for Cousin Kate who appears to have everything, because she must live under the order of her husband.
Rossetti chooses a first person narrative in this poem so the narrator can addresses her questions, laments and moans to Kate. She
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She is angry that he made her anxious instead of happy and took her away from her friends, her ‘cottage mates’ (line 3). The speaker later expresses her anger when she declares that, if she had been in her cousin’s place as the marriage choice of the lord, she would ‘have spit into his face and not have taken his hand’ (lines 39-40). Her emotions are incredibly strong and the violence of her anger is expressed through her imagination.
The first two stanzas in the poem offer an insight into the narrator’s past, showing the loss of her innocence the impact of the actions of the ‘great lord’ and an inner anger at her past actions, in the third and fourth stanzas the anger is directed at Kate for stealing the lord and sending her to her ruin, however in the fifth paragraph the direction of her anger is changed again and this time is directed at the lord himself. However the last stanza shows the narrator’s anger to be resolved for although she may have suffered an immense loss of reputation she can be happy now as she’s expressed her anger and knows within her heart that she has something neither the lord and lady Kate have: real love. This suggests that Rossetti doesn’t agree with confinement of the labels given by society, Kate is seen as ‘lovely and pure’ and she as ‘outcast’ but by presenting her as the one who is ultimately happy and proud it’s expressing that society values the wrong virtues, and has
The poem ‘Maude Clare’ highlights the good and bad, humble and hubris through the characters Maude Clare and Nell. Rossetti uses similes to show the qualities of the two women, Maude being the tempter of sin and pride, ‘like a queen’, and Nell being that which is of purity and humility, ‘like a village maid’. The religious references are very apparent with the washing of hands, ‘I wash my hands thereof’, referring to the purifying of Christ
while or was it all just a game to him? He used her and made her
Furthermore, Mary Oliver’s use of first-person point of view allows her to show how poetry writing is personal to her, and how it serves a specific type of challenge. Mary Oliver starts off
The author made Mary suicidal, she wants to give up, yet she doesn’t. Throughout the night, Mary’s voice has become full of hatred; hatred towards God, towards the people who hung her. She is full of anger to them. At the end of the poem, day has come and when they go to retrieve her body, they find that she is still
Christina Rossetti is a Victorian poet, with a majority of her work being published in the mid-1800s. Her poems are often praised by critics as being the beginning of modern day feminism, and a common theme Rossetti uses to portray this is the idea of ‘wronged women’. Wronged women are often interpreted as the outcasts of society, who have either been wronged or done wrong, often in correlation to a relationship or other lover. Maude Clare is a poem consisting of 12 stanzas, each made up of 4 lines, the majority of which conform to an ABCB rhyme scheme.
teenage girl who meets a boy at a party, they get on well and leave
As a result, she gives up on being peaceful and snaps at him. When she started saying the same thing about his body, he felt ominous and hit her. At that point, he fell into depression. This passage connects to women being objectified. They mention enhancing the image of women.
Although the structure of the poem contributes to its emotiveness the language is also essential to exhibit Rossetti's "passion". The natural imagery in the last three lines of each stanza contrast Rossetti to the natural world, they demonstrate how she feels left out of natural cycles by having no mate. There appears to be a longing to bear children in the last stanza, possibly Rossetti wishes not for the love of a partner but for the love of a child. Nature is usually associated with the idea of mating for
The Victorian England witnessed many developments ranging from the social to the literary fields. Literature being the very reflection of society since ages continued in the nineteenth century England also as the vehicle of expression. While the scientific advancement was the trend, there were many writers who sought a subjective involvement with life owing to the growth of uncertainty and doubts and took refuge from the religious domains. Poets like Matthew Arnold saw religion as the perfect hope for sustenance and apart from him, there were many other writers who made their say whether in the form of poetry or prose and contributed to the world literary domain. An effective woman voice of the period was Christian Georgina Rossetti.
In stanza 12, she tells us that he has “bit her pretty red heart in two.” Next, she states that he died when she was ten, and when she was twenty years old, she attempted suicide - “…I tried to die, to get back back back to you.” In stanza 13 is where she starts talking about her husband. She says that instead of dying, her friends “stuck her together with glue,” and since she could not die to get back to her father, she would marry someone who was similar.
The speaker also talks of Nell, his ex-wife. Though there were things that annoyed him about her, he still speaks fondly of her. For instance, he remarks, "That's why Nell was good to have round. She could be a pain in the ass, you know, like making me hang those stupid bells, but mostly she knew what to do." This allows the reader to see that the loss of his family has had a deep impact on him. He misses his wife and son and speaks of how families should be together, though his never will be again. This is what provokes him to do what he did next.
Contrasting her positive thoughts of living life to the full, Rossetti also releases her inner emotions regarding her own experience of not being successful in love and consequently was unable to enjoy life like others do. Through ‘song’, “Who look upon them hand in hand”, Rossetti realises how nicer the world could be if she was able to share it with someone special. “Two doves upon the self same branch”, using the recurring motif of ‘innocence and purity’, Rossetti attempts to see life as others do who take time to observe the beauty that surrounds them, and wishes that she could be as content, “Oh happy they who look on them”. Aware that she looks at herself and her life in bleak terms Rossetti affirms, “Who look upon them hand in hand/ and never give a thought to night” as she constantly refers to
Rossetti depicts the life of a loveless old maid to illustrate the negative effects of a life in sole pursuit of love. Rossetti says, “And one was blue with famine after love, / Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low / The burden of what those were
This poem was set in Renaissance Italy and women were denied all political rights and considered legally subject to their husbands. Women of all classes were expected to perform, first and foremost, the duties of housewife: sewing, cooking, and entertaining, among others. It is obvious from the historical context that Browning’s poem was
The structure of this poem is rather notable. It mimics the structure of a Clare sonnet, fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, AABBCCDDEEFFGG rhyme scheme. Both Italian and Shakespearean sonnets tended to be love poems. However, the Clare sonnet doesn’t quite fit properly with either, it’s a touch more simplistic in nature, which lends this poem something akin to irony. This poem isn’t simply a love poem, it’s poem about the frustration of love along with being a cautionary tale. It has a more