The world (final)

Question 1

structure

Answer 1

14 line Petrarchan sonnet (contrasts chaos, suggesting beneath the facade of the orderly of the world there is sin and evil)

division between octave and sestet shows world in two contrasting lights (day and night)

Question 2

when was the poem written

Answer 2

1854

Question 3

volta

Answer 3

portrays the naked truth of the world compared to its beautiful facade depicted in octave

Question 4

By day she woos ne, soft, exceeding fair but at nightso changeth she

Answer 4

choice of female pronoun,

connotations of the ‘day’ as seductive and manipulative (idea of the femme fatale), day accentuated temporal delights and people yeild to temptation

night unmasks the truths and is honest whilst the light of day conceals the truth of the night

soft exceeding fair are ‘feminine adjectives (idea of the gentle, beautiful facade of this temptation)

moon- contextual link to the moon and the idea that women are controlled by the moon (alludes to the inconsistent nature of women like the changes of the moon)

Question 5

loathesome and foul

Answer 5

binary opposites to previosu feminine adjectives to describe the day, shows the sinister nature of temptation

Question 6

‘hideous leprosy’ biblical reference

Answer 6

biblical reference to lepracy as punishment for sin (reference to highgate, punishment for sin e.g sexual disease)

suggets when temptation is revealed in the night its sinister ugliness is revealed, shows callousness and corruption of sin e.g sex ending up in studs

Question 7

‘subtle sepents glinding in her hair’

Answer 7

sibilance creates a lurid atmosphere - link to medusa/ eden for punishment of temptation

subverts romantic images of the petrachan sonnet

hair viewed as a symbol of sexuality (pre raphelite portraits)

Question 8

‘by day she woos me to the outer air,
Ripe fruits, sweet flowers and full satiety

Answer 8

sweet and rich imagrey of temporal delights and sexual and romantic imagrey

fruit=tempation (reference to adam and eve in genesis)

connotations of these luxuries as sinister rejects pre raphelite attitudes and aestheticism

Question 9

‘But through the night, a beast she grins at me’

Answer 9

satan and sin illusion, darkness = hell, temptation revealed as a beast, the devil (idea that temptation leads yo to satan)

with night comes the fall of man

Question 10

By day she stands a lie: by night she stands In all the naked horror of the truth

Answer 10

naked- could reference rossetti personal experience with prostitutes at highgate

Question 11

‘with pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands’

Answer 11

blatant satanic imagrey of horns and claws, shows danger and fate of temptation

sin takes you to hell

Question 12

‘Is this a friend a friend indeed’

Answer 12

questioning- the tempting nature of sin

Question 13

‘till my feet cloven too, take hold on hell’

Answer 13

again blatant satanic imagrey, of the cloven hooves of satan, alludes to the biblical view that sin gives disfigurements and illnesses

could refer to sexual disease rossetti saw in the highgate home for fallen women

could also be a reference to incubbi and succubi mythological figures who yeilded to temptation and were sexually sinful

Question 14

how does this subvert the petrachan sonnet

Answer 14

-crude imagrey of sin and the fate of temptation subverts the petrachan sonnet

Question 15

contextual link of the moon

Answer 15

idea that women are physically controlled by the moon

Question 16

symbolism of night

Answer 16

night is temptation- e.g prositution link?

Question 17

ho could the “She” in the poem refer to

Answer 17

-a specific woman
-representation of women in a wider sense - female temptress
-(sexual) desires or temptations
-female as the embodiment of temptation - becomes an eve figure