Gcse Coursework Assignment
...Analyse “Cousin Kate” by Christina Rossetti and “The Seduction” by Eileen McAuley. Compare and contrast the way in which the both poems deal with the theme of love and relationships, and shows how characters are presented in both of the poems. Refer closely to language, content, theme, mood and characters to develop your answer.
The two poems which I am going to analyse are; “Cousin Kate” by Christina Rossetti and “The Seduction” by Eileen McAuley. “Cousin Kate” was written in Victorian times and it describes a cottage maiden that falls in love with a rich and powerful Lord, but is later rejected by the Lord for her cousin. “The Seduction” was written in the 20th Century and describes a young girl that is lured by a man, and later falls pregnant after a one night stand.
The poem “Cousin Kate” firstly is a narrative poem which means that a person is telling the story. I know this because ‘I’ and ‘me’ is used throughout it. Also, the poems’ name is slightly strange as it is named after the cousin in the story as opposed to the maiden who is actually telling the story. The poem itself has many themes running throughout it. The themes to me are used to portray some powerful meanings. I think that the main themes are status, love, relationships and misery. The poem ‘Cousin Kate’ was written in Victorian times, a time in which status was very important to people. There is a lot of contrast in the poem between the two women and the lord. The lord was of upper class whereas the two of them were of lower class. Even though the maiden was of lower class she was ‘contented’. She has many ‘cottage mates’ and was quite happy with how life was until the lord came along and disturbed things. She asks rhetorical questions as to why he had to ‘find her out’ and ‘praise her flaxen hair’. She was so happy, worry free until this ‘great lord’ began giving her...
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