This history on Wilde brought a lot of new ideas into my head as we are getting ready to read some of his work in class. I am interested to see if there are any hints of homosexuality inside of his work. Some claimed that his work is what damned him as a gay because it was so evident within his writings. Others claim that there is no trace of homosexuality inside of his work and that he was able to keep his personal feelings out of his writings. I also thought it was interesting to read more about the community inside London and their knowledge of homosexuality. While it was something that was new, it wasn’t completely unheard of. There were bars and meeting grounds for men to come and meet each other: parks, bars, train stations, etc. The close relationship between men brings to mind the friendship between Robert & George in Lady Audley’s Secret. Had it been placed and published just a little bit later in history, I wonder if it would have been read in a more...

Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market” is intriguing because of its endless ways of interpretation. One such take on the poem is how it reads as a cautionary tale for fallen women. For example, in “Goblin Market,” Laura ends up eating the goblin’s fruit and becomes a fallen woman. Eventually, this consumption of the fruit makes Laura deathly ill and Lizzie worries her sister will die if she doesn’t receive more fruit. To save her sister, Lizzie goes to the goblin men to pay for their fruit. However, the goblins don’t want her money. They, instead, ty to force Lizzie to eat the fruit herself, thus turning her into a fallen woman as well.

The way the goblin men try to force the fruit into Lizzie’s mouth is analogous to a rape scene. The goblin men do everything in their power to wear Lizzie out and persuade her to eat the fruit. They mock her, beat her, and literally try to force her to eat by pushing the fruit against her mouth. Eventually, they give up and leave Lizzie in...

In the early half of the 19^th century, the Church of England was the authoritative voice on scientific matters. However, discoveries and books such as Charles Darwin’s, On the Origins of Species, resulted in a burgeoning divide between theology and science. For many Victorians this challenged their faith as these new scientific discoveries conflicted with the authority and dogma of the church. Many of the literary works of the second half of the 19^th century deal with the relationship of theology and nature, including Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.”

The opening stanza in “Dover Beach” describes a calm sea and includes a beautiful description of the sound of waves crashing upon the shore. In the following two stanzas it transitions to describing “The Sea of Faith,” which, according to the narrator, was once “at the full” but is now “melancholy” and “retreating.” The parallels between the descriptions of a literal sea and a depleting Sea of Faith...

This oil painting is called Vanity. It was painted by Frank Cadogan Cowper in the Pre-Raphaelite style in 1907. As a Pre-Raphaelite paining, the colors are quite bold, bright, dramatic. The painting itself looks highly realistic, another Pre-Raphaelite feature. Along with this, the painting is of a beautiful woman with pale skin, which was a common theme for Pre-Raphaelites to paint.

In this painting, the woman’s eyes are important to examine. For instance, the woman is shifting her eyes toward the hand mirror in her left hand. As she glances at her reflection in the mirror, she appears very well-pleased with herself and captivated by her own beauty. The sneaky aspect of her side-glance also insinuates how the woman can’t take her eyes off of herself, not even for a moment. She has to...