Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful Flashcards
What is ‘Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful’ about? (2 points)
It is a dedication to women as mothers and to the broad sisterhood of all women
Presents two opposing ideas:
+ Women in the present alive and facing life’s challenges
+ Dead women in ‘Paradise’ in the presence of God, looking down at their sisters still struggling on Earth
What is the form and structure of ‘Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful’? (5 points)
Form: Fourteen-line Petrarchan sonnet
First 8 lines are an octet/octave dedicated to the strength of women who struggle through life.
After the volta/turn is the sestet, or six lines, which presents the view of women ‘looking back to earth from Paradise’.
Metrical rhythm: Iambic pentameter - creates a
measured, solemn tread suitable for the subject matter
Has a complex but classic rhyme scheme that follows the pattern - ABBA ABBA CDE EDC
What are the language and devices used in ‘Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful’? (5 points)
Voice: First person narrator - probably the poet
The octet refers to the collective ‘we’ and ‘our’, drawing in all female readers
In the sestet she uses the more personal ‘I’.
Tone: warm and loving, conveying universality rather than personal emotion
Syntactic parallels in Lines 4-7 create a moving, rhythmic flow
What other poems does ‘Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful’ link to?
What is the relevant context of ‘Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful’? (4 points)
Women were barred from higher education and poor women lived lives of drudgery in Victorian times
Rossetti worked voluntarily with ‘fallen women’ — prostitutes — to rescue them from their dangerous, abused and impoverished lives
The poem makes her seem sympathetic to their plight - she didn’t judge them morally
Rossetti was not a feminist (e.g. didn’t support the suffrage) but had great sympathy for the difficulties faced by women living in poverty and their lack of legal rights
