Some Ladies Dress in Muslin Full and White

Question 1

What is Some Ladies Dress in Muslin Full and White about? (3 points)

Answer 1

This poem is a satire, written when Christina Rossetti was still a teenager

Quite harsh in its criticism of society’s expectations of women and men, their fashions and snobberies (materialism)

The poem is almost vicious in tone, unlike anything Rossetti wrote subsequently

Question 2

What is the structure of Some Ladies Dress in Muslin Full and White? (3 points)

Answer 2

The poem is a fourteen-line Petrarchan sonnet - comprised of an octet, a volta, and then a sestet with a new line of argument

The rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA CDE ECD

The metrical rhythm is iambic pentameter - the effect is, unusually, jogging and jaunty and rather defiant, unlike the usual elegant tread of more serious sonnet subject matter

Question 3

What is the language and imagery of Some Ladies Dress in Muslin Full and White? (4 points)

Answer 3

The voice is that of a third-person narrator - we can assume the poet, as the subject reflects what we know of her views on feminism

The tone is didactic and satirical, the pace is fast, and the language is concise and clipped

Rossetti uses a range of techniques that the detailed annotations will analyse in more depth

Notable are the first four lines that begin with ‘Some’ (anaphora) and the visual depiction of bizarre fashions that the poet scorns

Question 4

What other poems link to Some Ladies Dress in Muslin Full and White?

Answer 4

Maude Clare
Our Mothers Lovely Women Pitiful

Question 5

What is the relevant context for Some Ladies Dress in Muslin Full and White? (2 points)

Answer 5

Although critical of the role women were forced to play, Rossetti wasn’t a feminist, refusing to join the Women’s Suffrage movement when invited by poet Augusta Webster

She felt that men and women had divinely ordained distinct roles