Compare and Contrast ‘Cousin Kate’ By Christina Rossetti with ‘The Seduction’ By Eileen McAuley

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Compare and Contrast 'Cousin Kate' By Christina Rossetti with

'The Seduction' By Eileen McAuley

I read and enjoyed two poems 'Cousin Kate' by Christina Rossetti and 'The Seduction' by Eileen McAuley. In this essay I will compare and contrast the two poems.

'Cousin Kate' is a pre-twentieth century poem, set in the countryside. It is about a young woman who is a cottage maiden, she is seduced by a lord, who she falls in love with and has sex with out of marriage. The lord then discards her for her cousin Kate. She then has a son, which is the lord's, but she keeps it from him, knowing that this is what the lord wants, because he needs an heir to all his land and wealth. The cottage maiden also knows that her cousin is infertile and cannot give him children.

The main themes of this poem are; love because the cottage maiden loved the lord, seduction because the lord seduced her and made her his 'plaything'. Also betrayal because the lord tossed her aside and also because her cousin married the man that the cottage maiden loved. Another theme is teenage pregnancy and how it is perceived by other people. Also innocence, because she was young and happy with the cottage life before she met him.

The Seduction' is a twentieth century poem, set in the urban city of Liverpool. It is about a teenage girl who is seduced by a boy at a party. He gets her drunk and then they have sex. Three months later she finds out she is pregnant and is very distraught and angry and she feels very betrayed.

The main themes of this poem are love, because on that night she did think that she love the boy. Also seduction, because the boy got her drunk and seduced her. Another theme is naivety, because she believed that he wanted more from her than just sex, but she was wrong. Also teenage pregnancy and the way she feels it's ruined her life. Another theme is disillusionment because she feels cheated of her sixteenth year and all the fun that she is meant to be having, so she feels like it should have been her choice to ruin her life and not to have it just taken from her.
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These poems have things in common, for example they were both virgins before sleeping with the fathers of their babies, and are not with the fathers anymore (in 'The Seduction' the boy is not mentioned after the eighth paragraph, when she finds out she is pregnant, so we know that he is gone from her life by that point). They both feel that they have lost their innocence and childhood, and they are both treated badly by people around them, the peoples attitudes are the same in the two poems, that they are dirty, unclean and it's always ...

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