Maude Clare says to Nell ‘Take my share of a fickle heart’ she is saying part of Thomas’s love is her share, but she doesn’t want it as she claims it to be untrue love by using the word ‘fickle’. Also Maude Clare uses the word ‘Take’ this way in which this is said is suggesting that Maude Clare is giving her a gift, This makes it sound like Nell has no choice and that Maude Clare just wants to get rid of a burden.
‘My lord gazed long on pale Maude Clare if ever he kissed the bride.’ Thomas has betrayed Maude Clare by marrying Nell but he is has also betrayed he new bride, rather than kissing her he stares at his lover, showing he would rather be with her. He didn’t kiss his bride he just looked at ‘pale Maude Clare,’ she is pale as she is distraught and heart broken. The man she loves is marrying another women; this shows betrayal for both of the women. Maude Clare as he is marrying another women and also his bride Nell, as he is showing his love and desire for someone else.
In both of these poems pre marriage pregnancies occur. In Cousin Kate we don’t find out till the very end. ‘My fair- haired son my shame my pride.’ This part of the stanza explains that she has a son who is her shame as he is a bastard, a child born out of wedlock, which every one in the Victorian era would have been frowned upon. But he is her pride as he is her son whom she obviously loves.
In Maude Clare we discover that Sir Thomas doesn’t love his bride Nell. He has just been forced in to a marriage. We can tell this as at the wedding Sir Thomas’s mother says ‘he was not so pale as you nor I so pale as Nell,’ we think of pale as been weak and ill. His mother starts by saying that Sir Thomas is pale, he is like this because he is nervous and heart broken, he does not love the women he is going to marry but someone else so therefore pale. We get the idea that when it says Nell is pale this means she is pregnant. It makes sense as we suspect they have been forced in to a marriage.
Rivalry is shown in both of these poems; with cousin Kate it is between the narrator and Cousin Kate. Examples of this are shown in the poem ‘you grew more fair than I,’ by saying this it is saying that beauty meant a lot, and in this paragraph it makes the narrator sound envious that her cousin was younger and more beautiful. We get the impression that she is younger as she says ‘you grew’ this makes it sound like she had blossomed and grown in to a young women. This shows that the lord’s interest is based on body.
It also shows comparisons between the two women ‘because you were so good and pure he bound you with his ring: Because you were so good and pure, call me an out cast thing.’ This shows the comparison that virginity meant a lot in those days to be married you had to be pure and still a virgin. If not you were out cast, which is what happened to the narrator. The words bound and thing suggest that she is not humanised.
The poem compares the narrator and cousin Kate on many occasions really showing the rivalry between the two of them it also says: ‘Even so I sit and howl in dust you sit in gold and sing,’ this is quite shocking, it is showing the narrator as no longer being human in Victorian times just because she had lost her virginity before marriage she was no longer cast as human and by this quote it sounds like the narrator is actually beginning to believe this herself as she even uses animal imagery. ‘Howl in dust’ howling is what animals such as wolves and dogs do she is dehumanising herself and looking up and her rich beautiful cousin showing that her cousins status is far above hers now so the rivalry may as well be over.
In Maude Clare the rivalry is between Nell and Maude Clare, and in this poem Maude Clare actually confronts Nell. ‘ Take my share of a fickle heart. Mine of a paltry love.’ Maude Clare confronts the bride Nell, really emphasising that it is her that he is in love with still but that no longer wants it. Nell replies with ‘yea though you are taller by the head, wise and much more fair; I’ll love him till he loves me best, me best of all, Maude Clare.’ So Nell replies by admitting that Maude Clare is more beautiful and more perfect than her, and she is willing to stand by her husband till he eventually feels the same way about her. We sympathise greatly with Nell because of the way Maude Clare spoke to her and told her husband didn’t love her; I think Maude Clare did this in a last attempted to be with her lover and to end things, we sympathise more with Nell when she says “ill love him till he loves me best,” this is because she knows he dosent love her but se is preapared to be with some one who does not love her in return.
Another thing Nell says to Maude Clare is ‘For he’s my husband for better for worse, and him I love Maude Clare.’ As you can tell she repeats some of the marriage vows and refers to him as her husband. She emphasis that she has him and there is nothing Maude Clare can do about it.
Both of the poems show the man as being more powerful, for example in Maude Clare he is always referred to as ‘My lord,’ this is a powerful effect as to them he is like a lord, especially for Nell now that she is married to him. In Victorian times if a women marries someone they legally no longer exist as a person just as property to the man. Which is why he is like a god or a lord, he decides everything for her.
In Cousin Kate it also shows how the male is more powerful, he is more powerful then the narrator because of his status. She was just a country maiden he was a great lord. Also the fact that he is a man makes him more powerful. In the poem he is made to sound unkind and bitter, for example ‘he lured me to his palace home.’ He tricked her and lured her like a hunter might do to an animal, which again shows he has more power. He doesn’t treat her as if she is a human to him this is just a game to hunt her down then use her as his plaything until he gets bored and has to hunt again.
Another reason which shows he has more power is the fact he slept with the narrator then just discarded her and moved on to her cousin. A woman in those days could not do that and it would not be possible; she would be considered by the people of the Victorian era as a wanton strumpet; but for the man things were different he could sleep around and get away with things as that’s just the way things were.
I think both of the poems represent the meaning of love in similar ways. They each involve one man and two women; they also both involve betrayal, beauty, pre-marriage pregnancies and rivalry. Christina Rosseti didn’t show love as being the wonderful emotion that most people think it is. She portrayed love as feelings of wretchedness and despair.
By Emily Willis 10Pri
