Poem key quotations, context and interpretations! Flashcards
Twice: Synopsis, Interpretations and best quotations
The female speaker offers her love to someone I.e. earthly love, but he does not appreciate the gesture. She feels depressed and heartbroken; dedicating herself to God as he will not judge her. Finds redemption in God.
‘With a critical eye you scanned… And said: It is still unripe’
‘Broke, but I did not wince; I smiled at the speech you spoke’
Changes from ‘O my love, O my love’ to ‘O my God, O my God’
‘Purge thou its dross away’ dross being: earthly love was rubbish and she needs to be cleansed.
‘All that I have I bring’
Twice: context and interpretations
1864: Placed among non-devotional poems. Of Prince’s progress and other poems. Thus, the focus is on the failure of earthly love and finding consolation in heavenly love and religion. Arguably, James Collinson- their engagement broke off due to his conversion to Catholicism. Attack on the weakness of males. Links to Nora- he was not willing to sacrifice like Torvald.
Winter my secret: synopsis and best quotations
A female speaker refusing to tell her secret. Plays and flirts with the idea enjoying the power it brings. The speaker does not trust the man- she is cautious and he will have to continue guessing.
‘Perhaps some day. Who knows?’
‘Suppose there is no secret after all. But only just my fun.’
‘In which one wants a shawl, a veil, a cloak an other wraps’.
‘I cannot ope to everyone that taps’
‘To be pecked at by every wind that blows’
Clothing and disguise: clothing protects the speaker fro, the fierce and biting winds. Acts as warmth, metaphorically- protection.
The speakers sense of being under attack from curiosity of other- depicting a predator and prey relationship between man and woman.
Winter: my secret- interpretations and context
Interpretation: Simon Avery- ‘Behind this playfulness, however, is an intriguing study in the manipulation of power’.
Context: Woman’s attempt to gain status and power. As she has no other way of doing so. Arguably a critic of the restricted opportunities for women.
Women supposedly belonged to the domestic sphere- motherhood and marriage seen as sufficient for social fulfilment.
To gain more opportunities she would have to be single. But if not married, she would be viewed as abnormal.- such as Dolls House is based up- Laura Kieler whom upon rejecting social roles- based in mental institution. Links to Nora excitement of having secret- participating in economic exchanges.
Married women- property automatically became husbands. Not amended until 1882.
Women did not have right to vote- seen male would take responsibility for political matters.
Idea that clothes- protection. Endured control/violence of men- weren’t protected. ‘Act for better prevention and punishment of aggravated assaults upon women and children’ did not outright ban violence- just limited the force.
Uphill: synopsis and best quotes
Rossetti’s thoughts often turn to death when contemplating love. Death allows move from heaven to earth.
‘Does the road wind up-hill all the way?’
‘Yes, to the very end’
‘ Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?’
‘Yea, beds for all who come’.
Acknowledges difficulties of life- places faith in afterlife. Interpreted as an account from ‘Soul’s sleep’.
Uphill: context and interpretations
Uphill arguably about ‘Soul Sleep’. This journey could be the waiting time between death and reunion of the soul and body on the last day. Time were the soul enters a suspended state. On last day receives the eternal reward.
Undergone physical death and looking forward to great awakening.
Rossetti belief in afterlife- idea that religion offers relief and comfort.
Matthew 7:7 ‘Knock and the door will be opened to you’
Receive reward/ justice for her hard life- suffered graves disease, depression, religious crisis, death of family.
Maude Clare: Synopsis and best quotations!
Tells the story of Nell and Thomas- newly weds, who are accosted by Maude Clare as they leave the church. She declares to Nell that she can have what is left of the love Maude and Thomas shared. Nell says she loves her husband so much that she can overlook the past.
Willing to make a sacrifice for the sake of love and devotion. Unlike Nora, ‘But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves’ ‘It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done’.
Thomas:
‘Maude Clare’, - and hid his face’ childish gesture- stumbling and halting speech- didn’t want to face the problem.
‘Yea, though you’re taller by the head, More wise and much more fair: I’ll love him till he loves me best, Me best of all Maude Clare’.
Sacrifice- choosing him although he loves Maude Clare more- Mrs Linde who has to make a sacrifice and marry out of duty.
Maude Clare: interpretations and context
The idea that he hides his face mirrors Rossetti’s volunteering at St Mary Magdalene Home for Fallen Women in Highgate- believed men were also responsible for the problem. If women were being prostitutes men must be paying for the services.
Links- idea that women had to endure men’s infidelity, yet women could not divorce upon these grounds.
Shut out: synopsis and best quotes!
The speaker recalls that she was once happy; existing in a beautiful garden. Now she is shut out and the only comfort she has is looking through the iron bars. She asks the shadow less sprit for entry but he only builds a wall so she can no longer look through.
A02 to use!: ABBA rhyme scheme reflects how the speaker is secluded and on the outside.
‘A shadowless sprit kept the gate, Blank and unchanging’
‘he took mortar and stone to build a wall’.
‘ So now I sit here quite alone, Blinded with tears’.
Shut Out: Interpretations and Context
Written in 1856, just before her religious crisis in 1857.
Religion: Makes associations between the Garden of Eden and Eve. According to the genesis the GOE was a place in which God created the first human. Beautiful garden called paradise. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat the fruit. As Eve failed to obey- fell into temptation she was expelled from the Garden under the watchful eye of the guard.
Critique about women paying for the sins of eve. Religious strain- she had to split up with James Collinson on the grounds that he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Crump shows in her notes that an earlier edition of this poem had the title: ‘What happened to me’. from this Sawtell interpreted the spirit of being either Frances or Maria- rosseti’s mum or sister who did not approve of the relationship when james converted to Catholicism.
Restrictive.
Depicts social and religious restriction- such as in Nora.
Song: when I am dead my dearest- Synopsis and key quotations.
The speaker of the song looks forward to death and instructs their lover not to mourn or sing sad songs once they are gone- they do not mind if they are forgotten or remembered. ‘Nor shady cypress tree’ evergreen often planted at a memorial. Denying the desire for lover to remember her.
Anaphora: ‘I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain, I shall not hear the nightingale’ She won’t be in pain- earthly body will cease to have meaning. free.
context of Song: When I am dead my dearest
Religious beliefs in the afterlife. Place of peace and justice. Rossetti’s belief in Soul sleep. Perhaps writing as church expectant. Between state of physical body dying and reunion of soul and body on the last day. Between these the soul enters a suspended state outside of time and awareness. On last day receive: eternal reward. Look forward to great awakening. Rossetti presents life after death as a reason for not mourning or remembering. Nora’s reason for not being remembered is so she can escape the ties of her husbands control. Nora rejects death as an escape- scared. seeing it as a hopeless vision. death for Ibsen is scary- iconoclastic views- religion doesn’t provide salvation.
Rossetti is rejecting society’s conventions of grief.
Soeur Louise de la Misericorde: Synopsis and key quotes
The poem presents the persona of nun, sister Louise. Sister Louise is in an internal conflict. Tormented by desire- and the choice between religious devotion or romantic love.
‘ Where is the hire for which my life was hired?’ - she cannot fulfil role of motherhood as nun.
‘Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure’.
‘Turning my garden plot to barren mire’.
Rossetti’s religious idealism: duty to live our lives in purity.
Forbodes her religious crisis: ‘necessity of choosing’
Soeur Louise: Context and intepretations
Rossetti often read the works of the Gothic novelist Charles Robert Maturin.
In Maturin’s ‘The Fatal Revenge’. Rosalia is torn between romantic love and spiritual love, choosing to run away from the convent in which she is placed.
Contrast to Nora: comes to realise that she desires to be herself. ‘Most important duty is the one is to herself’
From The Antique: Synopsis and best quotations!
Rossetti explores the difficulties of women in the Victorian Era. Struggling to find a place where they are valued for themselves.
Such as Nora: Weary with the pre-set existence of women. Both women both contemplate the idea that it would be better to be nothing than to be a woman.
‘Doubly blank is a woman’s lot’
‘I wish and I wish I were a man: or, better then any being, were not…’
‘Still the world would wag on the same’
