{"id":1994,"date":"2021-11-13T22:14:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T03:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1994"},"modified":"2021-11-13T22:14:06","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T03:14:06","slug":"grab-the-world-by-her-horns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/11\/13\/grab-the-world-by-her-horns\/","title":{"rendered":"Grab “The World” by Her Horns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The poem \u201cThe World\u201d by Christina Rosetti, compares the world,\u00a0as seen by the poetic voice,\u00a0to a woman of\u00a0a\u00a0seemingly\u00a0polarized\u00a0nature.\u00a0The woman is described as a\u00a0being\u00a0of beauty and light during the hours of the day, but a gruesome and devilish creature once the sun has set.\u00a0The poet\u00a0illustrates\u00a0the paradoxical seduction of life in its tendency towards beauty\u00a0seen in the light of\u00a0day and\u00a0its\u00a0true\u00a0malevolence\u00a0that\u00a0is revealed in\u00a0the darkness of\u00a0night\u00a0through vivid imagery and personification.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the heart of the sonnet, the poet spends time describing the physical differences of the personification of the world that\u00a0she has created to\u00a0shed light on the juxtapositions of life itself. She says\u00a0\u201cby day she stands a lie: by night she stands in all of the naked horror and truth with pushing horns and clawed and clutching hands.\u201d\u00a0The \u201cshe\u201d being referred to is the woman that represents the world and it\u2019s interesting that the poet views the world as seen during the\u00a0day to \u201cstand a lie\u201d when most would assume that it is the light of day which typically reveals the truths\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0world. This perception is one that the poet goes against with her belief that the true essence of life is that which is shrouded in the\u00a0darkness of night and \u201cpushing horns and clawed and clutching hands\u201d. The binary of light and dark provides its own\u00a0connotations\u00a0of evil being in the dark which would\u00a0imply that this poet believes the truth of the world is its immorality. This point is\u00a0driven home through the depiction of the horns and claws\u00a0of the woman\u00a0that create a monstrous image of the world in its true form giving\u00a0the audience a visual aid to better understand the world\u2019s evil through \u201cher\u201d outwards appearance rather than simply providing examples of why the world is\u00a0so bad.\u00a0Through these conjured images, I believe that the poet is able to better communicate her perspective.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The poem \u201cThe World\u201d by Christina Rosetti, compares the world,\u00a0as seen by the poetic voice,\u00a0to a woman of\u00a0a\u00a0seemingly\u00a0polarized\u00a0nature.\u00a0The woman is described as a\u00a0being\u00a0of beauty and light during the hours of the day, but a gruesome and devilish creature once the sun has set.\u00a0The poet\u00a0illustrates\u00a0the paradoxical seduction of life in its tendency towards beauty\u00a0seen in the … Continue reading Grab “The World” by Her Horns<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}