SOEUR LOUISE

Question 1

what are the key points/context of this poem?

Answer 1

• she was the duchess/mistress of Louis 14th.
• nun- 1674
• Anchonites, see their vocation as being cut off from the outside world.
• this poem is foregrounded in the idea of mercy/pitty.

Question 2

key quotes and their significance?

Answer 2

• it becomes clear that SL Louise life lacks stability and support that she may need “dying embers mock”
  Repetition with a difference: “I have desired and I have been desired”- balanced anaphora to display her passion

Question 3

key interpretation of the poem

Answer 3

“I have desired, and I have been desired”- owning desire and does not run from it. With the religious views of Rossetti, she would have felt that the view of desire is wrong
“love’s deathbed”- the speaker is forced to mourn the destruction that her desire has caused, contrast the usual cliches of love.
The refrain is repeated at the beginning of the stanza, “O vanities, vanities of desire”
“barren mire” of the garden, portential reference to fertility that can no longer take place
There is also the repeated bleak image with the “death-struck love”

Question 4

structure and form

Answer 4

“longing and love”- disrupts the rhythm
repetition of key ideas