Everything Rossetti Flashcards
(14 cards)
(AN APPLE GATHERING)
Tone? Structure? Reasoning?
- Regular quatrains with ABAB rhyme throughout. Bucolic setting.
- Rossetti uses the ballad form, by focusing upon the repercussions of promiscuity for women in Victorian society, rather than a tale of a great hero or love story. Does still tell a cautionary tale.
- Written shortly after break off with James Collinson, not a directly confessional poem, but contains personal overtones, addressing Victorian idealism.
(APPLE GATHERING)
“I plucked…
pink blossoms from mine apple-tree.” the plosives create sonic effect, the blossoms present femininity, and a sense of beautifying for male attention, aestheticism and vanity. When blossoms are plucked, apples cannot grow, symbolic of loss of virginity/purity, cannot marry.
Apple is symbolic of Eve, temptation and caution.
(APPLE GATHERING) - the people?
“My neighbours…
“teased me…
mocked me while they sae me pass/ So empty-handed back.” , shows societal judgement, the Victorian expectations, end stopped lines evoke that this is it for the woman.
like a jeer;”, shows anxieties due to social standards, metaphorical language amplifies her feelings of shame.
(APPLE GATHERING) Willie
“was my love less worth…
“I counted the rosiest apples on earth…
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?” metaphor expresses her extreme loss and loneliness.
Of far less worth than love.” suggests that his love was worth all the trouble? above godliness in a way.
(APPLE GATHERING)
“And hastened…
but I loitered… I loitered still.”
colon evokes her hesitancy, the enjambment evokes the didactic nature of this poem. the loitering is given heavier meaning through its repetition, she has been left behind, suggesting she is now a fallen woman. “fell fast” fricative alliteration.
(AT HOME)
Tone? Structure? Reasoning?
- Rossetti’s father had died 4 years prior to the composition of this poem, perhaps a point of inspiration. As well as general Victorian obsession with death.
- The tone is angry and quite jealous, Rossetti is trying to evoke how those who do not follow God’s path will end up as the speaker does, in limbo.
- The poem is made up of four octaves, the trimeter at the end of the first stanza greatly humanises the speaker.
(AT HOME)
How are the friends represented as ungodly?
- “green orange boughs” evocative of Victorian aestheticism, opulence, shows youth and abundant life.
- “pulp of plum and peach” the plosive alliteration creates the image of a sumptuous feast, negative overconsumption.
- “Tomorrow shall be like to-day”, certain tomorrow will arrive, Christian morality and denial. Refrain of “Tomorrow” is quite existential.
(AT HOME)
How is the speaker scornful of their friends?
- frequency of stanza two “:” contrasts the ghostly nature of the speaker, sets them apart.
- “blessed noon”, brightest portion of the day, shows youth and vitality.
- “I, only I, had passed away”, the repetition evokes a unsettlement, she speaker lacks enlightenment in absence of god.
(AT HOME)
How does the poem evoke the message of Christian morality?
- “Plod plod along the featureless sands” onomatopoeia highlights the monotony of death, the barren landscape evoking the monotony of death when not honouring god.
- “Like the remembrance of a guest/ That tarrieth but a day.” alludes to biblical passages about impermanence, a possible didactic message.
(TWICE)
Tone? Form? Reasoning?
- Links to Rossetti’s High Anglican faith, the woman is rejected and thus finds god, belief in godly love over earthly love.
- A dramatic monologue, irregular metre which switches to a trimetre in the last two stanzas, suggesting the stability brought by God.
- It has a highly personal tone as well as religious.
(O my love, O my love)
- Pleading tone, human love is presented as pathetic, as a nuance of shame is created through the employment of parenthesis.
- Apostrophe is mirrored later in the poem, instead ‘O my god’, presenting how her love has now shifted to faith, with NO parenthesis, loves god loudly.
(TWICE)
How does Rossetti hint that the woman is now a fallen woman? Victorian ideals?
- “It is still unripe”, natural imagery evokes Victorian marriage expectations, places blame on her for being rejected, patronising tone.
- “The corn grows brown”, expectation for an early marriage, sexual metaphor, not ready to lose virginity
- “it broke–/ broke but I did not wince”, anadiplosis shows fragility of the heart- has lost her virginity anyway?
(TWICE)
How does Rossetti show the positivity of moving towards God?
- “My hope was written on sand”, biblical allusion to matthew 7:24, foolish man building his house on sand, Rossetti in turn calls her hope for earthly love foolish.
- “Purge thou its dross away”, speaker wants to baptise herself from this man, ‘pluck’ plosive evokes a hope that no man will touch her again.
- “All that I have I bring;/ All that I am I give”, the parallelism evokes marriage vows, the speaker gives herself wholly to god.
- “But shall not question much.” the certainty that she loves god is enough for her, god is everything through this passive ending, no metaphorical/embellished language as she has found her meaning.
What does stanza 1 of Passing and Glassing show?
- ## “looking-glass” used as a metaphorical symbol for judgement and scrutiny, women as a commodity of Victorian society.
