From the Antique Flashcards
She
‘It’s a weary life, it is, she said:
Doubly blank is a woman’s lot’
The pronoun ‘she’, rather than the first person tense allows Rossetti to distance herself from the poem and hide behind the attribute, perhaps giving her more freedom to speak unconventional views about women - the expectation for women in the Victorian era was to accept their life and limited social conventions, yet Rossetti, who spoke for better female representation in Parliament, confronts the issue here. Rossetti makes it clear that the speaker is a woman, not characteristic of her poetry, to highlight that this is without a doubt, a poem about women. The second line has a metrical change, emphasizing ‘doubly blank’ to demonstrate the emptiness in a woman’s life - the duality might suggest that women wish to express their unhappiness with this restricted life, but the restricted life is exactly what prevents them from doing so. This paradox is further highlighted by the poem not being published in Rossetti’s lifetime, showing the futility of a woman attempting to assert herself.
Wish
‘I wish and I wish I were a man:’
The constant use of colons in the first stanza show the the narrator’s desire to seek answers, as if women are always expecting more. ‘I wish’ highlight the idealistic nature of her longing, but shows the futility of wanting more. The syndetic structure of ‘and’ creates a fairy tale tone, as if her hopes are lacking any reality, but not through fault of her own, but the Victorian era that this poem was written in.
Rhyme and Meter
The poem is metrically unstable, alternating between 8, 9 and 10 syllables, which may appear more natural and convey the concept that a woman speaking out is intrinsic to the world, indicating the conventional views of submissive women as wrong. This meter also catches a reader off-guard, reflecting how surprising it is that a woman is asserting herself in the first place. Yet, this is off-set by the regular rhyme abcb scheme, along with the standard four quatrains, perhaps showing the dull existence expected of a woman, something that she constantly repeats.
Nothing
Blossoms
‘Were nothing at all in all the world…Not so much as a grain of dust’
‘Blossoms bloom in days of old’
‘Still the world would wag on the same’
The word ‘were’ indicates that so many women have so much potential to offer the world, and yet the rest of the statement destroys this idea of hope. Though nature appears temporary at time, constantly changing and quick to fade away, Rossetti juxtaposes it with the status of women who are no more than a ‘grain of dust’ - this demonstrates nature as being more permanent, more valuable to the world, and suggests that women are easily discarded, taken for granted - there is a clear bitter tone here, yet the speaker appears resigned, as if women are doomed to this fate. The modal verb ‘would’ shows how certain she is that the world disparages women, with ‘wag’ appearing dismissive in comparison to her certain fate.
