Summary A Level Essay Plan: Illness in Rossetti Poems and Ibsen A Doll’s House
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Course
Drama and poetry pre-1900 (H47201)
Institution
OCR
An essay plan formulated based on my study notes for the A-level Drama and Poetry section of the course, studying specifically Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House and Rossetti’s poems featuring analysis, context and critics surrounding the theme of illness which could potentially come up in a future ...
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Context
Victorian food adulteration in 1859, fraud, potted fruits, coloured sugar confectionary, all
poisonous treats. Capitalism- all food was potentially poisonous.
Lower classes would bring their food to be tested whilst middle classes would be advised for
warnings by scientific writings.
Laissez faire economics, theory that opposes governmental interference in economic affairs.
Her father began to lose his eyesight and hence family was plagued into economic hardship.
Rossetti used to be so angry and she ripped up her own arm with a blade to vent her wrath
Rossettis heart condition was read as an indication of her exquisite emotional sensibility
Turberculosis seen as a disease of excessive passion and sensitivity- also seen in john Keats a
glamorous, romantic disease.
Rossetti often had to be removed from the polluted air of london to spend time in seaside
destinations such as Hastings and Folkestone
She had physical diagnoses and side effects of along disease: anemia, lung congestion,
bronchitis, Graves’ disease, heart attacks and cancer.
Rossetti faints upon seeing her former fiancé collinson when she is ill
Angus Domini- devotional prose written as direct response to her illness, frames physical
suffering in spiritual terms
Graves’ disease one where a part of the body fails to acknowledge or recognise oneself
Addiction seen in Elizabeth siddal
Laudenam popular drug-
Illness extends beyond physicality 1
, Cottage grounds thirty miles from london polidori cottage in Helmer green- attention to
nature and the outside.
Addiction- familiar feature of Victorian life, drugs to reduce pain and anxiety. Imports of
opium quadrupled, bought openly without illegality. Laudanum cheaper than gin and beer,
‘mothers mercy’. Lizzie Siddal was addicted; Rossetti was buried with her.
Ibsen’s play ghosts was banned in britain due to ideas of illness and sphyilis
Men indulge in prostitution; led to diseases and sexual diseases at the time being rife causing
painful and lingering deaths
Contagious diseases act allowed for forced medical examination of any woman suspected to
be a sex worker.
Responded by a campaign for the repeal of the acts, argued male clients equally as
responsible
Morality believed to be hereditary and contagious, poor morality could make your child sick
and inherits corruption
Virginia Woolf wrote about killing the repressive idea of the angel in the house in order to
become a woman writer in 1931
Ibsens mother- angel of the house | mother in law- leader of feminist movement
Links to the flea by john Donne- three lives in one flea spare,a bout female sexuality and the
spread of venereal diseases.
Ibsen had a pharmaceutical apprenticeship growing up in the local apothecary
‘When we dead awaken” ibsen final work, idea of gender and death
‘Sentimentality’ seen to mean full of cheap emotion
Hysteria associated with the disruption of the womb in women
Victorian parents mourned loss of their child by dressing up their body and taking pictures
Silver coins put in the eyes of the dead as payment to the underworld
Ibsen self imposed exile to Italy, warmer climates for health
Corrupt father- lost all their fortunes and became an alcoholic
Darwins theory of evolution
Illness extends beyond physicality 2
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