GCSE (9-1): Literature: Poetry: AQA Love and Relationships: The Farmer's Bride: Context

Author's name

Charlotte Mew

1869

when Charlotte Mew was born

Charlotte Mew's parents

Her father was an architect and her mother the daughter and granddaughter of architects

Charlotte Mew's best known work

a collection of poems, The Farmers Bride, published in 1916

asylum definition

an institution for the care of people who are mentally ill

Charlotte Mew's family and mental illness

her brother, Henry Herne Mew, died in an asylum in 1901; her sister, Freda, was also a patient in an asylum and lived there until she died in 1958

Charlotte Mew's poems that explore her thoughts and feelings about insanity and asylums

On the Asylum Road' and 'Ken'

how Charlotte Mew died

she died from swallowing disinfectant in 1928

autobiography definition

an account of a person's life written by that person

the reason for a lack of an autobiography of Charlotte Mew

She was very determined not to provide anyone with even the briefest of autobiography

the Victorian era

the 63-year period from 1837-1901 that marked the reign of England's Queen Victoria

Victorian definition

relating to the reign of Queen Victoria or a person who lived during the Victorian period

Victorians and madness

the Victorians were preoccupied with madness

women, madness and Victorian literature

women were often presented as more susceptible to madness in Victorian literature, eg, Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847) was brought over from a mysterious plantation in Spanish Town, Jamaica, and confined to a solitary space in the attic because, according to Rochester, 'she is mad; and she came from a mad family'

Victorian beliefs about mental illness inheritance

Victorians believed that mental illness was hereditary; modern science has not yet proven this idea to be completely true or false, although it is true that it can run in families, but the cause is unknown

Victorian values

discipline, bravery, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak and vulnerable, family, marriage, religion, tradition

Victorian gender roles for women and girls in marriage

marriage and serving as support systems for future families were strongly ingrained in girls and women

common topics in Charlotte Mew's writing

death, the obsolete nature of the old orthodox assumptions, human relationships, nature, culture, tradition, the hopeless romantic

publishing context

The Farmer's Bride was published in 1916, two years after the start of WW1