The Theme Of Love In The Poems Cousin Kate And Maude Clare

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The Theme Of Love In The Poems Cousin Kate And Maude Clare

Love in most cases is supposedly something wonderful and amazing. This

is not the case in the poems Cousin Kate and Maude Clare. Christina

Rosseti presents love as being sordid and dirty. Also as a weakness

like an affliction. However traditional Victorian ideas are not

supposed to be like this they are about white weddings and true

romance by writing these poems Christina Rosseti has challenged the

original Victorian ideas.

The love in both of these poems involves betrayal. For example, in

Cousin Kate one of the quotes was; 'chose you and cast me by.' This I

find very powerful, in just a few words it explains how she was cast

away and discarded as if she were not human and were replaceable. It

also explains that he chose someone else, the way this is written

makes us think of the author as being like the lord's toy and as soon

as something better came along he chose that. Another quote from this

poem is 'His plaything and his love' again she is regarded as an

object something for him to play with and just use. The fact that is

said His plaything and his love makes her sound like his property,

just something he owned.

An example of betrayal in Maude Clare, is 'here's my half of the faded

leaves.' This makes it sound like a divorce, as if she is ending

everything between the two of them by using the metaphor of giving

back the half of her leaves. It is like handing back the memories and

all the good times they had together. Also the fact that it says the

faded leaves it makes them sound like they are past their best and

decaying, like the love her and sir Thomas had once shared.

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'.
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