Rossetti

Question 1

Memory (2)

Answer 1

Part 1 written in 1857
Part 2 written in 1865

From the early 60s she had been in love with Charles Cayley but “she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian.” (according to William Dante)

Question 2

Goblin Market (4)

Answer 2

Dedicated to her sister Maria

Lona Packer 1958 stressed Rossetti’s relationship with William Bell Scott who was intimate with another woman, Maria may have informed her of this and ‘saved her’.

Mary Wilson - 1991 focused on Rossetti’s work with the oxford movement in reforming prostitutes which accounts for both the feminism and the homoeroticism in the poem

Janet Casey - 1991 suggested that the poem is about the work of Florence Nightingale who popularised the notion of nurses as ‘sisters’.

Question 3

Twice (4)

Answer 3

Bible describes “a foolish man who built his house on sand”

Use of absolutes (“all”) mimics christian weddings vows

Fire = purification - biblical

Skylarks - writers such as Shelly presented them as as joyful spirited bird

Question 4

Despised and Rejected (3)

Answer 4

Jesus was described as Isaiah (in a prophesy) as “despised and rejected by others. A man of suffering and familiar with pain.”

“Depart from me into eternal fire … For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you have me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in” - JC

Rossetti modelled the face of Jesus in Holman Hunt’s ‘The Light of the World’ which depicts Jesus knocking at a door.

Question 5

Good Friday (5)

Answer 5

In Exodus God tells Moses to strike a rock which pours water for the thirsty Jews he is leading.

There was an eclipse after Jesus died

Peter declares that he is loyal to JC but later denies this and then he cried

The thiefs referenced are Dismas the pennitent thief who recognised JCs suffering and wept for him.

Moses was an acutal shepherd as well as a spiritual one for the Jews
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” - JC

Question 6

Uphill (4)

Answer 6

First poem published in Macmillan’s Magazine - widened her readership

non-devotional

question and answer immitates the style of the Common Book of Prayer

In the New Testament JC encourages people to turn to God with questions: “And I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”

Question 7

Summer is Ended (3)

Answer 7

A passage from the old testament “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved”

Dante in The Divine Comedy describes a “dammned flower” which is responsibe for the corruption of the church.

Dante used the rose as a symbol to depict paradise

Question 8

To Lalla (2)

Answer 8

Pet name of her cousin Henrietta Polydore

Rossetti contrasts the Victorian notion that children should be seen and not heard and that their only purpose is to grow into adults.

Lalla may be reading Rossetti’s own work - hinting to its enigmatic nature

Question 9

A Christmas Carol (1)

Answer 9

Critic Ian Bradley questioned the theory behind “Heaven and earth shall flee away” as he though it meant that heaven cannot hold God.
The bible says: “even the highest heaven cannot contain you”

Question 10

The Convent Threshold (5)

Answer 10

Maria joined a convent and Rossetti became heavily involved with it.

Jacob’s Ladder - he saw in a vision, it’s the ladder which reaches from earth to heaven.

Descriptions of hair = Goblin market “precious golden lock” and Cousin Kate “flaxen hair”

Seraph and Cherub - angels

The dream emulates a gothic style

Question 11

The Lowest Place (1)

Answer 11

Title comes from the Gospel of Luke - refers to a parable about Jesus visiting someones home for a meal and he observed that guests were picking the best seats and said that they should pick the lowest place because all that can happen then is that they are asked to sit somewhere better.

Question 12

Song (When I am dead my dearest)

Answer 12

rose = love
cypress tree = mourning
nightingale = joy, music
twilight = between earth and the afterlife

Question 13

Winter: My secret

Answer 13

Pecked nose - “cutting off your nose to spite your face” origins of this phrase were when pious women disfigured themselves to protect their virginities

Idea of temptation - GM
poem takes places over nine months! she may be preggerz

Question 14

Monna Innominata (7)

Answer 14

Dante = Beatrice 
Petrarch = Laura 

In a letter Rossetti insisted that none of the sonnets be separated.

Poem is sometimes interpreted as a response to her brother Dante’s The House of Life

Rossetti is now 51

Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt, she never had a name in the bible!!

Moses parted the red sea and killed the Egyptians

“a foolish man who builds his house on the sand”

Question 15

Two men Rossetti rejected on religious grounds:

Answer 15

James Collinson

Charles Cayley

Question 16

Simon Avery described Rossetti to be a:

Answer 16

“astute questioner and analyst of her contemporary world”

Question 17

Dante’s opinion of Rossetti as a poet:

Answer 17

“She is the finest woman-poet since Mrs. Browning, by a long way; and in artless art, if not in intellectual impulse, is greatly Mrs. Browning’s superior.” (artless means not being pretentious)

Question 18

My Dream

Answer 18

Euphrates - a river in Babylon
Jordan - another river
Moses divided the red sea
enigmatic nature of Rossetti’s work - link to winter my secret