Female Poets and the Dark Side of Life
During the mid-nineteenth century many female poets including
Christina Rossetti seemed to lean upon the dark side of life
presenting very dark and shadowed emotions within their poetry. Yet
this is not to say that they were depressed but in many ways in can be
inferred that these dark themes may have been influenced by the era in
which they were living. Many historians have suggested that the second
half of the nineteenth century was culturally, a rather strange
period.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was started in 1848 by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, as a reaction
against what they saw as the stale, formula-driven art produced by the
Royal Academy at the time. They aimed to go back to a more genuine
art, exemplified as they saw it by the work of the Nazarenes, and
rooted in realism and truth to nature.
The Pre-Raphaelites, being young, talented, and having many ideas of
their own, felt stifled by the rigidity of the Royal Academy's idea of
what tasteful, beautiful art should be. ...
be a target to get this depression if they had significant others who would be expected mothers or
She Kills Monsters has a lot of obstacles that characters have to overcome during the play. From accepting each other for who they are, overcoming struggles and shaping their identity even more. I created a poem about acceptance and how you just be yourself no matter what people say. Be imaginative because it leads to the best outcomes. Shape your identity into something you are proud of.
Depression shifts ones focus off the necessity to belong in life onto the thinking one never can.
Uttering the final goodbye is never an easy thing to do. In many cases we never have the chance to say goodbye. Deep in our subconscious, we know our final moments in this world will eventually come. The question that leaves everyone in fear is when our final moments in this world will be, and whether we are able to say goodbye to the ones we love. Literary writers compose great pieces of writing that revolve around death. Sometimes it is not the death of a person, but rather, having something being ripped out of our hands; having no control. Take English poet Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “Upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666,” Bradstreet allows us to feel what she feels; when losing her home, she is rattled with anger towards God, but
Quite often, tHere are two sides to every story. Similarly, there are often several different viewpoints on any given topic. The idea of the importance of poetry is such a topic. While some may find poetry pointless and hard to follow, others stand behind such writing wholeheartedly. Naomi Shihab Nye stated, “Anyone who feels poetry is an alien or an ominous force should consider the style in which human beings think. ‘How do you think?’ I ask my students. ‘Do you think in complete, elaborate sentences?... Or in flashes and bursts of images, snatches of lines leaping one to the next?’ We think in poetry. But some people pretend poetry is far away.” Nye is correct when she compares the way humans think of the way poetry is written. It is clear that Naomi Shihab Nye is correct in her statement through the study of poems such as Streets by Naomi Shihab Nye, Halley’s Comet by Stanley Kunitz, and Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper by Martín Espada.
and depression that occurs when a person experiences or witnesses a traumatic event that is
In the movie and in actual history the depression affected everyone and every family in a different way. Some families handled the stress differently than others, some fought to keep their children while others abandoned their children. Many things contributed to the depression but
who were depressed were 4 to 5 times more likely to have made serious inquiries about
Shakespeare, Browning and Duffy all create four very similar characters female characters which are considered to be disturbed. This is due to the fact that they all went against the expectations of society in their respected eras. The speaker in ‘The Laboratory’ as well as Havisham and Medusa in Duffy’s monologues are all considered to be “disturbed” because of their common motives: jealousy and revenge. Despite these similarities, Lady Macbeth’s main motive is her hunger for power. This subverted expectations of females as they were supposed to be loyal to their male partners and shouldn’t want to take their power. In this essay I will talk about their desire for power and revenge, and why this has lead them to be portrayed in such a disturbed manner and how this goes against people’s expectations.
Poetry "should be a shock to the senses. It should also hurt" Anne Sexton believed (Baym 2703), and evidence of this maxim's implications echoes loudly through the writing of Sexton as well as through the work of her friend and contemporary Sylvia Plath.
Depression is such a cruel punishment. There are no fevers, no rashes, no blood tests to send people scurrying in concern, just the slow erosion of self, as insidious as cancer. And like cancer, it is essentially a solitary experience; a room in hell with only your name on the door. (Manning)
Throughout history women have always been considered lesser than men. Women were portrayed as property to men, nothing more. They were supposed to be seen and not heard, and were basically servants to their husbands and fathers. In order for women to even be considered more than property their father or spouse had to be established in the community or a man of high rank. Despite their subservient roles women in British literature have always been depicted as obedient or unruly, from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, to Beowulf, to Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.” For example, women have always been portrayed as being housewives, and care takers. Women were supposed to tend to the men and all of the house hold duties and chores; however some women broke away from that stereotype. They became more and curious and aware of their worth, so they were viewed as temptresses or “rebels” against the social norm. Despite the fact that women have evolved throughout history, British literature has always characterized women in two different lights, one being obedient and submissive and another being powerful and strong willed.
Does gender explain the importance of a poet? Gender is just the state of being male or female. When it comes to gender no gender is superior than the other. Some individuals would imagine a poet becoming important by them excelling intellectually, being able to write about the things one could relate to, and sometimes being that voice for those who cannot be heard. Anne Bradstreet, an early American poet, takes on the gender stereotypes of women not being better poets than men in her poem “The Prologue”. Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England, in 1612, and was living during a period when women could not voice an opinion. If they opposed the punishment was death or in some cases banishment. She was the first women to be recognized as
The Portrayal of Women in American Literature Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different way than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may have represented his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays her as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the main female character, Daisy Buchanan, is portrayed by, Nick, the narrator, only by her superficial qualities.
The three poets convey the feelings of seriousness, happiness, and failure. In the poem “Simile”, Scott Momaday explains how people and the actions we do are similar to animals in which the comparison was towards deer. In “Moon Rondeau” by Carl Sandburg he illustrates that working together in a relationship, you may be able to accomplish a task and generate a strong bond. In the final poem “Woman” by Nikki Giovanni she displays how one may want to grow and be someone special to your significant other but they may not care of what their other may want. The three poets are illustrating the theme of humans being similar to animals in which case they either work together or they just ignore each other within the literary similarities and differences of the three poems.