Rossetti Quotes Flashcards
1
Q
From the Antique
A
- “It’s a weary life, it is, she said- Doubly blank in a woman’s lot”
- “I wish and I wish I were a man: Or, better than any being, were not”
- “Not a body and not a soul: Not so much as a grain of dust”
- “I should be nothing, while all the rest Would wake and weary and fall asleep”
2
Q
From the Antique Structure
A
- Four quatrains- conformity/ structure.
- Third person perspective- distances herself from feminist viewpoints.
- Allusion to Tennyson’s poem Mariana about an abandoned woman- female voicelessness- ironically used a man’s poem.
3
Q
From the Antique Context
A
- Rejected from Florence Nightingale’s nurses at 24- made her feel rejected/ meaningless.
- Complicated views on woman’s suffrage- did not endorse equality (signed an anti-suffrage letter in 1889)- potentially a result of her religious devotion.
4
Q
Song: When I am dead, my dearest
A
- “Sing no sad songs for me”
- “Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree”
- “I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain, I shall not hear the nightingale”
- “And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set Haply I may remember, And haply may forget”
5
Q
Song: When I am dead, my dearest Structure
A
- Allusion to sonnet 71 by Shakespeare as it follows the same theme but Rossetti is legitimising female poetry.
6
Q
Song: When I am dead, my dearest Context
A
- Nightingale- symbol of the lament she experienced losing her father. Also possible links to her rejection from Florence Nightingale’s Nurses.
- Rossetti has multiple mental breakdowns throughout her life.
7
Q
Remember
A
- “Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to get yet turning stay”
- “You tell me of our future that you plann’d”
- “For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.”
8
Q
Remember Structure
A
- Petrarchan Sonnet- 14 lines split into an 8 line octave and a 6 line sestet.
- Rhyme scheme usually ABBAABBACDECDE but Rossetti changes the rhyme scheme after the volta to CDDECE- defying tradition.
- Iambic pentameter- 10 syllables (unstressed, stressed)
9
Q
Remember Context
A
- Written in 1849, published in 1862.
- James Collinson- suspected to be controlling- declined his proposal.
- Could be about her father/ his illness.
10
Q
Echo
A
- “Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream”
- “O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet”
- “Where thirsting longing eyes Watch the slow door That opening, letting in, lets out no more.”
- “that I may give Pulse for Pulse for breath”
11
Q
Echo Structure
A
- Lyrical poem- romantic song.
- Repetition- mimics an echo.
12
Q
Echo Freudian Interpretation
A
- Sexually repressed as she never married so poem/ dreams an outlet.
13
Q
Echo Context
A
- Link to myth of Echo and Narcissus- unrequited love, inability to express desire, inability to use voice, subconsciously women feed male narcissism.
- Life to be endured not enjoyed.
14
Q
Shut Out
A
- “The door was shut. I looked between Its iron bars; and saw it lie, My garden, mine”
- “Pied with all flowers bedewed and green”
- “It had been mine, and it was lost.”
- “A shadowless spirit kept the gate”
- “I peering through said: ‘Let me have Some buds to cheer my outcast state’”
- “He answered not. ;Or give me, then, But one small twig from shrug or tree’”
- “The spirit was silent; but he took Mortar and stone to build a wall; He left no loophole great or small”
- “my delightful land is gone”
15
Q
Shut Out Structure
A
- Regular uses of caesura- mimics the barrier.
- 7 quatrains- regularity, structure
- First three stanzas id, middle ego, final 3 super ego???
