Homework: Define a specific word in a text.
I chose morbid from the poem Moulin Rouge by Arthur Symons. The dictionary states morbid as:
- Of, relating to, or characteristic of disease
- Affected with or induced by disease
- Productive of disease
With a homework assignment like this (inspired by a previous assignment) one can really see how a work can have more than one meaning. When reading a text one does not often think about the other definitions of the words, but rather the one that is used most often. When I looked up this word I was shocked. I realized that I have been thinking and using this word wrong. I thought of morbid as something bad, which is along the lines of the real definition but still is not correct.
The text uses the word morbid in the following paragraph:
Alone, apart, one dancer watches
Her mirrored, morbid grace;
Before the mirror, face to face,
Alone she watches
Her morbid, vague, ambiguous grace.
As we have learned in class prostitution is something that was frowned upon during the 19th century but was done anyway. Prostitution obviously has sexual risk involved as sexual transmitted diseases are transmitted that way. The chances that men used condoms are slim to none. Symons first discusses the women as beautiful dancers. He talks about them performing a waltz of roses. Red roses are known for their elegance, beauty, and ability to seduce people. Symons also describes them as red blossoming roses. However, the dancers have a dark side and it is seen when one of the dancers looks into the mirror and recognizes it. Knowing the definition of morbid, I relate it to that she either realizes that prostitution is a disease or that she has a sexual transmitted disease. Either way she recognizes that her elegance is tainted.
-Yuri Can
