A Castle-builders world Flashcards
(7 cards)
‘unripe harvest…hath none to reap it…unripe vineyard’
The repeated image of unfulfilled potential through nature imagery: suggests a barren land, incapable of cultivating a prosperous yield, metaphorically depicting how Earth fails to provide sufficient sustenance for spiritual development. The Christian symbolism suggests an undernourishment perhaps stemming from people’s growing isolation from God’s teachings causing their personal developments to halt. Although the ‘unripe’ status of humanity is arguably an unfixed one because with the right equipment and treatment an unripe plant can flourish, meaning that humans do have a capacity for personal and spiritual growth, but this flourishing society cannot be achieved upon Earth or without the religious guidance of the gospel.
‘This ‘world’ is described as a place incapable of engendering a prosperous yield: ‘Unripe harvest…Unripe vineyard’, the repetition of unripe suggesting an inability of physical development which could potentially metaphorically represent the poor spiritual development of Victorian society under the growing move towards secularisation as people were becoming more self-indulgent and less spiritually aware, hence: ‘none to reap it….none to keep it’.
‘misty gusty place…in unprofitable space’
Furthermore, the inhospitable nature of earth is revealed through the rhyming pair of inconstant images of ‘misty, gusty place/ in unprofitable space’ which emphasises the true state of disrepair that the Earth has devolved into. The smoggy, unclean connotations of ‘misty, gusty place’ evoke an unstable environment plagued by industrial pollution. Perhaps Rossetti shed light on the growing danger of capitalistic pursuits as not only does it strip people of their morals by damaging their spiritual union with God but it likewise wreaks ultimate damage upon the natural landscape
A03: note the rise in ecological concerns in the Victorian era such as J.S Mills’ 1848 Warning to the world and Dodsworth’s sign of the times with Earth depicted as a dank, miserable space prone to natural disasters etc as a direct consequence of industrial pursuits.
bleak description - ‘misty & gusty’ = barren, infertile land, no opportunity for prosperity. Metaphorically earth is unable to act as a suitable location for spiritual growth.
economic implications of ‘unprofitable’ - lack of spiritual prosperity on earth.
‘only masks in flocks and shoals’
Further Christian imagery is used with the biblical illusion: ‘masks in flocks and shoals’, the congregational qualities of such implying a sort of mass worship, although in this case society seems to be worshipping the false idol of a ‘castle’ rather than following Jesus as a moral shepherd.
social commentary - animalisation depicts lack of individuality stemming from Victorian ideas of social propriety.
‘flesh-and-bloodless hazy masks….flesh-and-bloodless vapid masks’
- The poem’s tense tone is further reinforced through a semantic field of the intangible, with humans described as ‘flesh-and-bloodless hazy masks…flesh-and-bloodless vapid masks’ evoking a sense of humanity masquerading as ‘living beings’ however being ‘flesh-and-bloodless’ they are not real humans filled with compassion and vibrancy. This sense of trickery and performative humanity: ‘hazy masks…vapid masks’ suggest that humans are inauthentic, wearing masks to hide their true nature. The lucid quality of these ‘ever wavering poles and orbs’ merely demonstrate how soulless this bleak vision of society is as the population is entirely empty and both devoid of and incapable of producing full emotions as ‘masks’ suggest a fixed position.. It could be argued that as they aren’t fully formed, lacking ‘flesh-and-blood’ - potential reference to their disconnect from the eucharist.
Furthermore, Rossetti’s ‘central religious element’ (Laporte) creeps back in with her use of further inconstant images of the unfulfilled, accompanying biblical allusions: ‘flesh-and-bloodless hazy masks…flesh-and-bloodless vapid masks’. The constant repetition of the negated ‘flesh-and-blood’ allusion to the eucharist suggests that not only are these people in this dystopic envisagement of a society without religion utterly lifeless and drained of any vitality or humanistic attributes such as compassion, but that the root cause of this deprivation of sustenance is due to a lack of true connection to God through religious services; thereby Rossetti utilises this morose idea to plead with Victorian society to reevaluate its prioritisation or lack thereof of religion.
‘ever wavering poles and orbs’
& ‘shades of bodies without souls’
these humans which exist as ‘have failed to achieve a state of enlightenment through their presence on Earth as they are incomplete, intangible humans obsessed with vanity, prioritising the earthly setting of a ‘castle’ above the spiritual. Additionally, the religious iconography of orbs and poles ‘wavering’ suggests an instability, likely the instability of this society’s religious dedication.
This idea is punctuated by the poem’s final line ‘shades of bodies without souls’ ending the poem on a rather stark vision of humanity as leading insubstantial lives, unable to reach their true spiritual potential.
A castle builders world: Title
The titular ‘castle-builder’s world’ denotes power and regal status so is emblematic of the utter vanity and power lust of the earthly experience with people obsessed with the creation of their own ‘castles’ for their own benefit of being seen as of high status.
A castle builders world - AO5:
Marsh: ‘CR had warned against castle building’
