By Harvey Millar and Aimee P-C

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literat

ure/poetryrelationships/sistermauderev2.shtml

• Sister Maude is about the death of a loved one caused by the

actions of a jealous sister.

• The poem is written from the point of view of the betrayed

sister, left alone without her loved one, who was coveted by

Maude.

• The betrayed sister believes that even if she hadn't been born

her dead lover would "never have looked at" Maude, and

perhaps this provided motivation for Maude to destroy the

lovers' relationship.

• The betrayed sister asks who has informed her mother of her

‘shame’ and asks who has told her father of her ‘dear’. The

question is answered by the betrayed sister herself – it is her

sister Maude. The betrayed sister is angry, because Maude

was lurking, ‘to spy and peer’. Maude has evidently revealed

private matters to their parents.

• The poem opens with a rhetorical question, this opening makes it clear that there is an implied audience for the poem – the speakers sister, Maude, who is accused about the death of a lover.

• The third line in the poem makes use of a break in the centre (a technique called 'caesura') to reflect the speaker's outrage and anger that "Maude, my sister Maude" could have deliberately caused such a tragedy.

• The repetition of "Maude" also adds to the strength of the narrator's feelings.

• There are frequent religious references in the poem, reflecting conventions within society at the time in which the poem was written, as well as the seriousness of the events described. Maude has committed such a terrible deed that, rather than going to heaven, her sister tells her, "Bide you with death and sin". The narrator feels that Maude deserves the eternal punishment of hell.

• Alliteration is used in the poem to express the feelings of the speaker.

• In the second stanza she describes the body of her dead lover using several repetitions of the letter 'c', the hard sound echoing her outburst.

• In the final two lines there is alliteration of 's' sounds, mimicking the hissing satisfaction that the speaker feels at the prospect of her sister going to hell.

• Religious imagery “Heavens-gate”

• Sister Maude explores the darkness and jealousy and the

destructiveness of sisterhood. There is a suggestion that

Maude’s betrayal was unnatural or un-sisterly.

• This is a poem about opposites: good vs evil or in

religious context heaven vs hell. The additional two lines

at the end of the final stanza reveal the hatred the sister

feels for Maude’s behaviour, as well as the joy she feels

at the prospect of Maude in hell.

• Each stanza contains even lines that rhyme. This regular pattern helps to reinforce the traditional source for the poem because older poetry is often characterised by the use of strict structural devices like rhyme, rhythm and even line and stanza lengths.

• Of the five stanzas in the poem, four have four lines. The fifth stanza offers an extra two lines in which there is a mood change.

• The last stanza has six lines allowing Rossetti to comment on the fate of her parents, lover, herself and her sister.

• The rhyme scheme for the final stanza is ABCBDB. The fact that the first and third lines have no rhyme gives Rossetti more freedom in her choice of words.

Sister Maude is about not just sibling rivalry but a kind of

hatred and jealousy that rips the sisters apart from each

other. Maude has been led to the death of the boy the

speaker of the poem is in love with. While the speaker can

forgive her parents who did the right thing by forbidding

them to see each other, she cannot forgive Maude because

Maude's jealousy led her to tell her parents about the boy

that Maude was seeing.

The speaker was in love with a boy she shouldn't have

seen. Her sister was jealous and this somehow led to his

death because of the girls' parents.