Rossetti

Question 1

Winter: My Secret

Answer 1

“I tell my secret? No indeed, not I”
“Perhaps my secret I may say”
“His nose to Russian snows”

Angela Leighton saw Rossetti’s ‘flaunted secretiveness’ as central to her work.
Original title was ‘Nonsense.’
Charles Cayley was Russian-born. Is this her secret?

Celebration of female autonomy to keep secrets. Playful and Nora-like.

Question 2

Song: When I Am Dead, My Dearest

Answer 2

“When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me”
“I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain”
“Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.”

Rossetti expected to die young due to health problems. Rossetti believed in the doctrine of Soul sleep - the soul of each person, believer and unbeliever alike, is unconscious or nonexistent between death and the resurrection of Jesus.
Atypical attitudes towards death.

Transitory nature of love.

Question 3

Simon Avery

Answer 3

“[Rossetti] used biblical idea of women’s subordination to man as reason for maintaining the status quo” —- challenged by Maude

“usually far from conservative and often questioning, challenging and potentially subversive.”

“Time and again in Rossetti’s poems, the female figure is depicted as entrapped or confined- physically, psychologically or both.” —– challenged by Maude, No Thank you

Question 4

Remember

Answer 4

“Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land”