The Sick rose Flashcards
3 ways of symbolism for the word Rose
According to medieval tradition it represents chastity and virginity - associated with young girls
- signifies love especially romantic passion
- linked with morality a sign of transience of human love and beauty, because it blooms, smells sweetly and then dies links sex and death
Penetration of the rose by the hidden canker work
Covert sex which destroys the virginity of an innocent and thus corrupts her own expression of love
Worm
Literallt refers to canker worm which attacks rosebuds
- metaphorically worms are associated with death and decay since dead bodies are said to be good for worms
Worms in medieval England
Refer to snake or serpent
- alludes to image of the snake as a seducer of Eve in the story of the fall of human kind in Genesis
- links to sexuality and shame
- invisibility of the worm echoes the Christian teaching that the devil lurks unseen and is a master of disguise
- ‘worm’ conveys phallic associations - Blake believed that eheh humankind feel and the sexes were separated it had an impact on their capacity for sexual ecstasy - capacity for ecstatic union was reduced from whole body involvement to genitals alone
Flies in the night
Traditionally the night is when demons witches and wild beasts seek their prey and ghosts appear
- suggests that the worm is active at the time when people are most prey to their fears and fantasies
Howling storm
Suggest times of ungovernable, frightening turmoil and passion that are potentially destructive
Has found out
Echo of Psalms 90:8 which refers to exposure of secret sins
Crimsons
Denotes passion, blood and shame
- crimson and scarlet used to describe sin in the Old Testament
- ideas of shame, sin and secrecy have reached to the innermost part of the person
- capacity for ‘joy’ is now infect by such life denying emotions bringing it death
- crimson joy may be describing the blood shed at the loss of virginity
Falseness on repression of sexuality and other emotions
Blake believed that inhibitions lie primarily within the mid rather than in external factors
- society make it’s fears guilt and shame into rules and laws which are then enshrined in social institutions such as the authority of parents the church and state or monarchy
- repercussion prohibit action mean that love has to be associated with secrecy and with forces that are perceived as destructive
Effects of the fall
Effect on human relationships of fallen divided selfhood which jealousy defends its pleasures, denying them to others
- love is ‘dark’ and ‘secret’
- one chief pleasure is exerting control over others. Masquerades as showing affection
- makes life devouring and destructive
Interpreted as
An allegory for the corrupting influence of sexual desire
Blake was an advocate for
Sexual liberation well ahead of his time
- poem critiques the way that sexual unions are so often shrouded in secrecy, darkness and shame
- damage caused by suppression and desire
Opens with an
Apostrophe as the speaker addresses the rose itself
- ‘O’ makes the poem sound like a kind of lament
- speaker is mourning roses death
- the long ‘o’ assonance in the first two words heightens this effect
- these Bowles suggest weariness but also the roses beauty grace and elegance
Rhyme scheme
ABCB
- stanzas are asymmetrical
- punctuation is irregular
Matthew Prior - A true maid
Written before a sick rose
- man and woman - man called dick - women protests that her virginity is a Jewell - he tells her that he has come pretty close to losing it
- satirical poem pointing out the hypocrisy is society
