Christina Rossetti uses similes, repetition, and imagery in “Maude Clare” to tell a story about a woman interrupting her ex-lovers wedding in order to show she is giving up on loving him. After annotating this poem, I found many interesting characteristics such as speaker, tone, mood, sound devices, rhyming pattern, poetry type, figurative language, imagery and theme.
In “Maude Clare” the speaker is a narrator, maybe on looker to the wedding ceremony. The narrator is speaking to an audience. For example, in line 1 the poem reads, “Out of the church she followed them…” This quote is in third person, which implies that the speaker is an unknown person (narrator).
After reading “Maude Clare” I noticed Rossetti used a regular rhyme pattern. In
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In line 3 and 4 Rossetti uses two similes to compare Maude Clare and Nell’s beauty. “His bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like queen.” The narrator is telling us that Maude Clare was much prettier and more desirable than Nell. This helps to add to the mood/tone because it makes us feel sorry for Nell.
Imagery was evident throughout “Maude Clare.” In lines 1 and 2, the narrator says “ Out of the church she followed them with a lofty step and mein.” After reading these two lines I saw a woman walking out of a church following a newly wedded couple. I also see Maude Clare dangling half a golden chain in front of Thomas’ face because in line 21 Maude Clare says, “Here’s my half of the golden chain.”
I believe the mood of the poem is sympathy/pitying. After reading this poem I felt sympathetic to each of the main characters. I feel sorry for Thomas and Nell because Maude Clare shows up on their wedding day and tries to cause trouble. However, I feel sorry for Maude Clare and Thomas because I believe they were in love, but because of their social status they cannot be together. In lines 47 and 48 Nell says, “ ‘I’ll love him till he loves me best, me best of all, Maude Clare.’” This along with line 10 leads me to believe that Thomas is only marrying Nell out of convince, when he is actually still in love with Maude Clare. I pity that Thomas and Maude Clare cannot be