In Hero and Leander there are many contrasting attitudes to the concept of erotic love. The two manners toward erotic love are as such: One is to stress on the physical act of sex. The other is the defiance to erotic love and preference toward virginity. At first glance Leander seems to favour the former and tries to promote physical love, but throughout the text he shows a kind of humorous naïve-ness. Hero, who is a nun and supports chastity, in general, can be seen being quite forward.
Human flaws are weaknesses in personality which result in outcomes that lead to disreputable actions. Through the dramatic irony of the monologue, the reader is able to gain an understanding of the social attitudes and patriarchal values in the Victorian Era which the human flaws in the monologue are based on. The study of “My Last Duchess” offers a significant understanding of the male ego and a male’s desire to be in control in a relationship. The factors determining a male’s desire to be in control are evident through Browning’s portrayal of the Duke through his need to retain his pride, extreme jealousy and his need to objectify women in order to satisfy the male ego. Browning contrasts the Duke’s representation of the duchess with the factual representation emphasising the Duke’s manic state and causing the audience to strongly oppose the duke as a person.
What are Catullus’s attitudes to Women? This focus of this commentary includes three of Catullus’s attitudes towards women. Firstly, Catullus’s attitude to love and women. Catullus has an affectionate view to love with Lesbia and this is the main attitude which he holds in the series of the poems. However, this attitude to love and women changes from positive to negative when he realises Lesbia’s infidelity, seen in Poems 5 and 10.
After reading Swift’s poem, I would like to partially retract my statement. Although Swift does utilize the feminine gender as a vehicle for his social thoughts, his text is more concerned with satirizing humanity than solely attacking women. For Example, Swift uses "strephon" to criticize the idealization of love. In his investigation of the dressing room, Strephon represents the idealizing lover in an environment of realism. Many others believe that this was a flaw in many people of Swift’s time, male and female.
During the Victorian era, men and women searched for an ideal relationship based on the expectations of a demanding society. After reading the researched expectations of men and women of the Victorian era and relating them to Wilde’s two works, readers can acknowledge the effect the expectations have on these characters; especially the men. Analyzing the characters in Oscar Wilde’s works show how the expectations of society effects the characters’ behavior and their reaction to society’s ideals. Oscar Wilde examines the impact of Victorian society’s unrealistic expectations on the individual in The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, showing how rejection, whether from a potential partner or society as a whole, can lead to deceit and engaging in a double life in order to satisfy conventions. During the Victorian era, men and women searched for an ideal relationship based on the expectations of a demanding society.
This article takes a different approach speculating that the duchess had to be unfaithful due to her husband’s impotence. The author goes on to point out specific lines within the poem that suggest this as being plausible. Gardner gives the explanation for another wife as being to increase the Duke’s wealth from his new wife’s dowry. I particularly like the fact that this author call the Duke a sociopath that loves to horrify others in order to feed his ego. I’m not quite convinced but other views interest me so I believe this article could be helpful in my paper.
Rossetti enters ‘no man’s land’ by switching the role of masculinity and femininity in “Goblin Market”, at the same time probing into unmentionable, taboo topics. Margaret Homans, in her essay Syllables of Velvet, discusses how topics of sexuality and love through genres such as love lyrics are often seen through the eyes of the masculine figure while the female is portrayed as submissive in her position as the silent love interest. On page three she points out the portrayal of “I” and the subject as purely male; this correlates to Lacan’s claims that the phallus signifies the meaning and dominancy. Rossetti completely capsizes these norms in “Goblin Market” by projecting the opposite. The poem explores women and the issues of sexuality and desire; Laura represents what would normally be the masculine figure that vies for affection from his desire.
SaME NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF LOVE IN SAPPHO'S FR. 3I LP. MAX TREU EBLJOMHKONTOYTH, 1 Modern interpreters of Sappho's fragment 3 I in LobelPage's edition may be divided into two main groups: there are those who see in the "fjvo~ wV'YJe a personal riyal of Sappho and argue that she is jealous of the man 1), and those who reject jealousy and say that the poem expresses Sappho's love for the girl 2). Textual difficulties would seem to account for this, but added to them are certain preconceived notions concerning the nature of Sapphic love: both groups of interpreters share, basically, the same belief of old: Sappho, to put it bluntly, gives expression to her homosexual feelings. As a result the poem has never, in my opinion, been treated fairly.
The poems with a ‘Mrs’ in front evidently suggests that the relationship status between the two characters are husband and wife therefore there is or has apparently been some sort of marriage amidst them. Other than that, Duffy has also briefly used nature in her poems which demonstrate how this anthology isn’t just about relationships of men and women, and how everything is become modernised, causing a negative finish. Duffy has created two different aspects regarding relationships. First is a relationship which was worthy and enduring, and second is the negative side of being in a relationship which in other words Duffy has ultimately sabotaged the stereotypical roles of sexes in order to expose male dominancy and suffering of women. In the elegy ‘Mrs Lazarus’, the relationship between her and her husband seemed quite ordinary but more than that, it was the way she was grieving and her emotions after he died which shows that they had a very strong relationship and depended on each other, “Slept in a single cot, widow, one empty glove, white femur in the dust, half.
Sexual violence by men towards women due to society’s conservative approach regarding the subject of ‘sex’ is the main theme of Joyce Carol Oats’ story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Although, after reading through this story several times and reading many other view points, I now believe there are many symbolic messages being projected between the lines of this diabolic tragedy. It is like a beautiful tapestry, the more you look at it the more you appreciate its beauty, not only as a whole but each small detail it has to offer. However, for the purposes of brevity this essay will focus on the thesis mentioned above. The story is set in America in the 1960’s, the era of the sexual revolution and when women took a stand against the predetermined place society had reserved for them. This story