Echo

Question 1

echo summary

Answer 1

Rossetti’s poem describes the longing of a spirit in heaven for the lover left behind. It is unusual in that Paradise is usually associated with peace and content. Here the souls ‘thirst’ for those they left behind.

The title Echo relates to the Greek myth of Narcissus and Echo. Narcissus gazed and fell in love with his reflection in a pond, while Echo loved and yearned for him but was rejected. So it is significant in that it refers to the soul’s continued, repetitive longing.

Question 2

“come to me”

Answer 2

anaphora
shows her desperation for her lover to return

Question 3

“O dream”

Answer 3

There is a lexical field of ethereal and intangible things— memory’, ‘dream’, ‘souls’.

Question 4

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;

Answer 4

simile
adds a lyrical tone
biblical illusion to a cherub
express love and desire

Question 5

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:

Answer 5

juxtaposition of life and death
longing to be reunited in death