Male and female relationships in Maude Clare. Megan Erridge 11th Grade

Composed in 1857, Maude Clare is written as a narrative in which Maude Clare confronts her previous lover on his wedding day. As is common in her poetry, Rossetti uses this fictional event to discuss the theme of male and female relationships. The ambiguity of Maude Clare can perhaps be seen to reflect Rossetti’s own conflicting views on the relationship between men and women; as a devout Anglican, Rossetti struggled throughout her lifetime with the biblical view that women are inferior to men, and her own ideas, perhaps influenced by the beginning of the suffrage movement, that the two sexes are equal. Whilst she certainly did not consider herself a feminist, Maude Clare, along with several of her other poems, suggests that she was supremely uncomfortable with the typical Victorian relationships between men and women, particularly regarding the double-standards surrounding sexuality.

A major theme which is discussed in Maude Clare, particularly at the beginning, is the relationship between men and women within the context of marriage. The way in which Rossetti initially refers to Nell as ‘his bride’ whilst Maude Clare, who is free from marriage, is immediately presented as a dominant force as the poem takes her name. This...