An Apple Gathering Flashcards
What is An Apple Gathering about?
The sad tale of a woman whose life is ruined by the sexual double standards of British society in the 1800s
What is the structure of An Apple Gathering? (3 points)
Seven quatrains or four-lined stanzas, with an ABAB interlocking rhyme scheme
The metrical rhythm is unusual in that the regular iambic pentameter pattern is replaced in the last line of each stanza by iambic tetrameter
Though unsettling, this scheme gives the last line of each stanza extra emphasis
What is the language and imagery of An Apple Gathering? (3 points)
The voice is that of a narrator, not the poet, using the first person pronoun ‘I’
The tone is of regret and hopelessness, The speaker is a pariah, marginalised by society for her sexual misdemeanour
The dominant metaphor is of apples as the symbol of temptation and premature self-indulgence - Biblical reference (Eve)
What other poems link to An Apple Gathering?
Goblin Market
What is the relevant context for An Apple Gathering? (2 points)
Was written shortly after Rossetti had broken up with her first love, James Collinson, whose flitting between Catholicism and Anglicanism left them with irreconcilable differences
Its heroine is a “fallen” woman: one deemed unworthy by society, usually as a result of sexual experience outside marriage
