Context Flashcards
Short specific contextual references to include in essays for the Rossetti/Ibsen side of the OCR A Level course
‘Angel in the house’
The Angel of the House by Coventry Patmore (1854)
A book that suggested that gender should define the dynamic of a relationship
Beeton’s ‘Complete Etiquette for Ladies’ (1876). She opened with the statement that the mistress of the house should consider herself as the ‘commander of an army’. Her intention was to make middle-class women feel that the domestic sphere was just as important as the public world to which their husbands returned each morning.
Law that limited the amount of force men were allowed to use against their wives
Criminal Procedure Act (1853)
Law that allowed a married woman to legally own and control any property she earned on her own after marriage, and what it did
First Married Women’s Property Act (1856)
It included wages, gifts, inheritance, or income from investments. It also protected these things from her husband’s debtors.
The early women’s organisation that had a journal that Rossetti wrote for
The Society for Employment of Women (1860)
Statistics for rape convictions in Victorian England
21% of men accused of rape stood trial
Of this, 40% were convicted
Quote from Kathryn Hughes to describe George Cruikshank’s Beehive illustration.
depicted class divisions as ‘natural and unchanging’
Who was William Acton and what did he say about women’s sexual desires?
A doctor. He said that ‘the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind.’
What was the Contagious Diseases Act and when and why was it put into place?
1860 - it allowed, in certain towns, the forced medical examination of any woman who was suspected of being a sex worker. If she was found to be infected with a sexual disease, she was placed in a ‘Lock Hospital’ until she was cured. It was put into place because many doctors (eg Acton) were worried about how prostitution spread sexual disease among the male population.
What is the statistic for the number of women who worked in the 19th century?
While most men worked, only one-third of all women were in employment at any time in the 19th century, against two-thirds in 1978 for comparison.
Quote from Greg Buzwell about the New Woman.
‘served as a mirror in which to reflect the attitudes of society.’
Quote from Judith Butler about gender being performative.
‘Gender reality is performative which means quite simply that it is real only to the extent that it is performed.’
What did the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 say?
Women could be divorced on the grounds of their adultery alone, while it had to be proved that men had exacerbated adultery with other offences.
Who did Rossetti turn down proposals from, and why?
James Collinson and Charles Cayley, on grounds of religious incompatibility.
What was Rossetti’s connection to the Pre-Raphaelite movement?
Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was one of the founding members.
She was their head poet.
She modelled for several paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists.
Rossetti’s work at the St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary, Highgate.
She helped prostitutes escape their lives on the streets by retraining them for domestic service.
Rossetti’s sister, Maria
Maria Rossetti became an Anglican nun in 1873.
Rossetti’s religious crisis
She suffered at least one religious crisis around 1857.
Louise de la Valliere (1644-1710)
The mistress of Louis XIV, bearing him five children before losing his favour and being replaced by various other mistresses. Humiliated and dejected, she sought spiritual solace by leaving the French court and joining a Carmelite nunnery in 1674 (the date Rossetti includes at the very beginning of the poem). Soeur Louise de la Misericorde, or Sister Louise of Mercy, was the name given to Louise when she took her vows in 1675. She stayed there for thirty-six years, writing Reflections on the Mercy of God, a semi-autobiographical text exploring God’s grace for sinners, particularly former courtesans who repented and sought God’s forgiveness.
Rossetti literary context
Growing awareness of an audience for the female writer
Symbols and motifs
Literary form, structure and devices employed to convey message (from an AO1 perspective)
Elements of Pre-Raphaelite painting (realism and symbolism, precise photographic detail, eroticism)
Biblical allusion / focus on death / afterlife
Construction of a convincing persona
Heightened emotion
Ibsen literary context
Realism
Naturalism
Features of 19th Century melodrama and The Well-Made Play
Powerful dialogue
Symbols and motifs
Entrances and exits
Characters with psychological depth
When was the Declaration of Independence and what was it?
1814, separated Norway from Denmark.
