Maude clare

• Maude clare embodies which qualities of the ideas victorian woman?

  challenges the modest femininity of the ideal, strong voice, angry but supposed to be composed
• nell embodies which qualities of the ideas victorian woman?

  dutiful and submissive as she does not challenge maudes anger or Thomas past
• Elizabeth K Helsinger critic quote

  "Maude clare also emphasises the insidious effects on female relationships of womens powerlessness in the competitive marriage market"

  Maude and nell not allowed moral authority, profited from Lord Thomas's faithlessness
• Rossetti doesn't give her narrator a clear identity, why?

  avoids aligning the perspective too closely with a character
• how does Rossetti portray Maude clare? do we empathise with her or is her disruption depicted as underhand?

  defiant as she disrupts a conventional wedding

  refuses to accept Thomas betrayal - empowering

  raw emotional pain - abandoned for someone more socially acceptable
• "his bride was like a village maid , Maude clare was like a queen"

  antithesis between plain and attractive women , fallen woman is not demonised but glorified - madonna whore
• madonna whore complex


  madonna-virgin,innocent

  whore-promiscuous behaviour

  women categorised into one and praised or judged
• both Rossetti and Ibsen present women who


  do not conform to contemporary social expectations, they are seen as products of their surroundings and as independent and strong
• Maude Clare depicts 


  a female rejecting the conventions of marriage
• written

  1859

  published 1862
• structure


  traditional ballad
• traditional ballad


  rhymed abcb quatrains

  has a refrain-line/stanza that repeats through poem

  dramatic event
• "out of the church"

  was inside , wants to disrupt marriage not ceremony

  in a dolls house noras and torvalds marriage is disrupted