at home Flashcards
form
dramatic monologue
stanzas in octaves
metre
iambic Tetrameter
year written
1858, after religious crisis
summary
Describing what it was like when she was first dead. She returned to her home, which is referenced in the title, and observed her close friends. Now that she is dead she is stuck in the past, and states specifically that no one wants to go there. Her friends take turns shouting our desire to go on to “tomorrow.” The poem concludes with the speaker describing how she is trapped within her home, unable to stay in one room, and spend time with other people. Her surroundings are all the same as they were when she was alive, now she has changed irreparably.
what does ‘when i was dead’ suggest
a state of purgatory/ ‘soul sleep’
possibly opposes her religion (gothic feel from ghostly perspective, less christan framing)
significance of ‘hand to hand’
element of physical touch rossetti feels she cant achieve due to metaphysical state (due to her morals??)
‘pushed the wine’
religious reference
indulgence in luxuries/ immoral behaviour
‘feasting beneath green orange boughs’
indulgence in temporal delights
colourful image evokes preraphelite wallpaper imagrey
use of ‘they’ juxtaposed to ‘I’
oppossition of pronouns isolates her
‘they sucked the pulp of plum and peach’
fruit imagrey- indulgence/sexuality, temptation (are these friends enganging in immoral behaviour and extravengance that rossettis religion doesnt approve of?)
‘along the featureless sands
And coasting miles and miles of sea’
enjmabement elongates image of sand and creates diustace (distance between rossetti and her friends)
-rosetti cant physicaly connect to nature in this ghostly state
‘plod plod’
colloquial and conversational style= familiarity (seperates rossetti from inner circle)
repetition of ‘tomorrow’
emphasises their naivety and tomorrow isnt promised (so they should cleanse of sins before judgement day)
‘I, only I, had passed away’
deliberacy- commitment to religion over earthly pleasures
abundance of use of ‘I’ in last stanza
acknowledgement of her own passive presence in comparison to others
