Echo Flashcards
What is the significance of the poem being called Echo?
It could symbolise what’s left of Rossetti’s voice.
What is the opening line of the poem? What does it signify?
“Come to me in the silence of the night; Come to me in the speaking silence of a dream” - It could suggest the speaker is dead and wants her lover to join her in the afterlife. Shows how true love transcends life and death. It could show the speaker is yearning for someone and is seeing them in dreams rather than in reality.
How does the speaker view the second person?
“Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright as sunlight on a stream;” - they provide comfort to the speaker in dreams.
How does the speaker view the dreams?
“O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bittersweet whose wakening should have been in Paradise” - the speaker views the dreams as bittersweet because they have to wake up. They believe they should have woken up in paradise together.
What does the speaker long for?
“yet come to me in dreams, that I may live my very life again though cold in death: come back to me in dreams” - no more purpose after death. They are accepting of death and aware that this is how things must be but can’t accept the separation.
What is this poem loosely based on?
The story of Echo and Narcissus, Echo is in love with Narcissus but Narcissus rejects her as he is in love with his own reflection and this reduces her into a simple voice.
What could this poem be about apart from just a woman longing for a man?
- Rossetti mourning her father.
- Wanting someone you can’t have.
