Autumn Violets

Question 1

Autumn Violets: Title

Answer 1

seasonal symbolism - contradictory
- spring = peak time for flowers/blossoms & autumn = flowers decay
- suggest an unconventional outlook
- violet = tiny, fragile, modest due to ‘shrinking violet’

Question 2

AV: AO5 - AVERY

Answer 2

‘CR’s speakers demonstrate awareness..to social and political expectations which define acceptable roles for women’

Question 3

Autumn Violets: Seasonal imagery as a commentary on age/ the role of the ageing woman.

1. ‘k l f y, a v f t s’
2. ‘d s’ vs. ‘g w b t b’
3. ‘A g R t g s c’

Answer 3

1. ‘keep love for youth, and violets for the spring’ = highly declarative statement which links youth to violets, delicate, beautiful flowers that indicate vitality and prosperity. The allocation of violets to the ‘spring’ reveals prevailing social attitudes that ‘love’ should be confined to teh very prime of one’s life, which, as demonstrated through teh seasonal imagery of ‘spring’ is in one’s youth - potentially when they are at their prime childbearing years.
2. ‘dry stubble’ vs ‘green world buds to blossoming’: Juxtaposing floral imagery reflects the deterioration in value of the woman as she ages. The barren image of ‘dry stubble’ suggests a complete deprivation of nutrition and an inability to reap a bountiful yield, this is in complete contrast to the vitality & prosperity of ‘green world buds to blossoming’ which depicts a bountiful season with the ability to provide on a large-scale. The contrast between the depleted state of nature vs. the thriving, emphasised by the non-violent plosives which evoke a sense of flourishing ‘plant-life’ (and metaphorically a flourishing love life) reinforce this idea of ageing as stripping away women’s opportunities.
3. ‘a grateful Ruth tho’ gleaning scanty corn’: evokes an image of gratitude despite the unappealing offer of ‘scanty’ and thus ‘unprosperous’ yield, a metaphor for the depletion of quality and quantity of marriage & love prospects for the ageing feminine figure. This biblical analogy/allusion to Ruth reflects CR’s argument that despite the limited offers one recieves, one should be thankful and grateful for it => emphatic in the assertion that whatever love we receive, in whatever form, is precious and should be treasured.

AO3: ‘Violets’ = often associated with virginity but could also be linked to the stereotype of the ‘shrinking violet’ which upholds traditional gendered ideas of the young woman as a meek, unthreatening figure.

Question 4

AV: the physical deterioration of the ‘world’ as a metaphor for the declining value of the ageing woman.

1. ‘w o a g’
2. ‘h i d s o l’
3. ‘d d w’

Answer 4

1. ‘worn out autumn grieves’: melancholy personification of the season ‘autumn’ implies a sense of sorrow and mourning - potentially a mourning of a lost love or a mourning of lost value in the Victorian marriage market as this metaphorical woman is deprived of prosperity in the form of marriage offers as she has aged out of appealingness, becoming a spinster rather than a wife.
   ‘worn out’ also indicates the extreme physical toll that this search for a respectable match appears to have on the woman.
2. ‘hid in a double shade of leaves’ : complete deprivation of light potentially serves as a metaphor for how the ageing woman is paid almost no attention. The typical associations of light with hope indicates that the revocation of light from these plants is symbolic of the complete state of hopelessness these women are plunged into, esp. considering the life-giving, nurturing qualities of ‘light’ which is emblematic of the complete unfulfilled, ‘underdeveloped’ state of the unmarried woman. AO3: In accordance w/ Victorian ideals of marital relationships, a woman’s failure to conform by securing a marriage essentially condemned her to an unprofitable life & led to her ostracisation.
3. ‘dropped down withering’: harsh plosive ‘d’ reflective of the complete state of despair and disrepair that this woman has fallen in to. Suggestive of a state of degeneration of physical pain as these plants are left ‘withering’, implying that they are approaching ‘death’ => perhaps in this case a ‘social death’ or death of opportunities.

Question 5

AV: Structure: 14 line Petrarchan sonnet

Answer 5

The use of a 14 line sonnet = a logical structure is employed which symbolises how this is Rossetti’s logical argument musing on whether age should outcast a woman from society.