The World Flashcards
What is The World about? (3 points)
Concerns the contrast between romantic, innocent love and erotic desire - Rossetti’s narrator, probably a man, battles with the two contradictory, extreme forces
Title is significant - as well as depicting the struggle of one man, this is also the universal struggle of humankind against the forces of evil.
Disturbing in that it places the responsibility for the ills of the world on an unnamed ‘she’
What is the structure of The World? (4 points)
Petrachan sonnet - fourteen lines divided into an eight line octave or octet, followed by a six line sestet
There is no clear volta or turn, marking a change of approach or new thought
The rhyme scheme forms the pattern ABBA ABBA, CDC EDE
The metrical rhythm is the traditional sonnet Iambic pentameter - solemn pace appropriate to a poem about powerful temptation and sin
What is the language and imagery of The World? (4 points)
The voice is that of the first person narrator, probably a male persona
The tone is sombre, as appropriate to the subject.
The subject matter, sin, deception and temptation, is expressed in Gothic terms, with reference to the devil and to hell
The opposites, night and day, are represented in terms of the ‘lie’ of daytime, the innocent, romantic love, which hides the monster that will appear at night
What other poems does The World link to?
What is the relevant context for The World?
The poem is a re-enactment of the Fall of Man in Genesis Chapter 3 in a sense - the tragic consequences of Adam and Eve’s disobedience and the consequent fall of humanity into sin
