Echo Flashcards
what is the form of this poem?
A lyric poem—expresses strong emotions in a concise moment rather than a narrative.
Three sestets create a pattern that builds tension, reflecting yearning.
First three lines of each stanza are iambic pentameter, then syllables decrease, returning to pentameter in the last line—mimicking the fading in/out of dreams and their fleeting comfort.
Echoing structure (consistent stanza/line lengths & rhyme scheme) reinforces the poem’s metaphor: the speaker is stuck repeating the past.
what is the context of this poem?
written in 1854, published in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862).
Title reference: Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus—Echo’s unfulfilled love mirrors the speaker’s endless longing.
Rossetti’s father had just passed away - possibly about him. Caused financial difficulty in family. Her inability to work as a woman to help provided a strain. Heightened her sense of duty to her Mother.
Fallen women at Highgate 1859-18 (on the interpretation that this is a death of purity
John Brett relationship
what are the themes of this poem?
Love
Memory
Loss
Grief
Dreams vs. Reality
Escapism
what poem would you pair this with for the theme of grief/loss?
remember, memory
“come to me in the silence of the night;/”
Apostrophe: Directly addressing lost love, creating intimacy.
Anaphora of “come”: Urgent, yearning tone.
“silence”: Eerie and isolated but also comforting.
“night”: Juxtaposes fear/darkness with reunion/love.
Enjambment: Reflects silent, continuous longing.
“come in the speaking silence of a dream;/”
Oxymoron: “Speaking silence” blurs life & death.
Sibilance (“s” sounds): Whispering, ghostly tone.
“come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright/as sunlight on a stream;/”
Youthfulness, cherubic, religious undertones.
Imagery: Juxtaposes dream joy with real grief.
“Eyes as bright”: Suggests hope, perception, and reflection—mirrors the Echo & Narcissus myth.
“come back in tears,/O memory, hope, love of finished years.”
“Finished years”: Acknowledges the end of their love, not denial but longing.
Water imagery: “Stream” → “tears” → “brim-full” (baptism, religious connotations).
“Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bittersweet,/”
Progression (sweet → bittersweet): Realization that dreams can’t change reality.
Caesura: Breaks rhythm, mirroring unfolding disappointment.
Epistrophe (“sweet” repetition): Emphasizes pleasure despite pain.
Oxymoron (“bittersweet”): Conflicted emotions—love/hate, joy/sorrow.
“whose wakening should have been in Paradise,/where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;/”
“Paradise”: Dual meaning—heaven & dreams.
“Brimfull”: Excessive longing, overflowing desire.
“Should have”: Regretful, insistent tone.
“where thirsting longing eyes/watch the slow door/that opening, letting in, lets out no more.”
Enjambment: Stretched lines mimic agonizing waiting.
“Slow door”: Symbolizes the barrier between life & death.
Chiasmus (“letting in, lets out no more”): Balanced but opposing phrases reinforce finality.
“Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live/my very life again though cold in death;/”
“Yet”: Reinforces desire.
“Come to me” refrain: Commanding, desperate.
Metaphor (“cold in death”): Grief makes the speaker feel lifeless, like an “Echo.”
“come back to me in dreams, that I may give/pulse for pulse, breath for breath;/”
“Pulse” & “breath”: Life-giving imagery—dreams keep the speaker alive.
Biblical parallel: Similar to God breathing life into Adam.
Erotic undertones? Victorian modesty vs. deep desire.
“speak low, lean low,/as long ago, my love, how long ago!”
“Speak low” → “speaking silence”: Echoes the beginning.
“Lean low”: Ghostly presence, heavenly descent, or a kiss?
“How long ago”: Repetition suggests fading echoes of memory.
Alliteration (“l” sounds): Lingering, lyrical, emotional.
