Twice /

Question 1

O

Answer 1

(O my love, O my love)

The inclusion of brackets = earthly love, something perhaps to be set aside, not crucial for life. The later reference to ‘O my God’ has no brackets.

The structure unusual - amphimacer, where the first and last syllables of ‘O my love’ are both emphasised,

Question 2

stand

Answer 2

I said: Let me fall or stand,
Let me live or die,

These two lines are syntactic parallels, creating a rhythmic effect, emphasising its importance. The speaker is laying herself open to pain.

live or die - only two options - no purgatory - catholic

Question 3

once

Answer 3

But this once hear me speak
(O my love, O my love);

compare to ms Linde

The speaker knows she is taking a huge risk and won’t pursue the man beyond ‘this once’. She is outwardly reticent, but her heart is passionate, as her repeated ‘O my love’ indicates.

Question 4

woman’s words

Answer 4

Yet a woman’s words are weak:
You should speak, not I.

patriachy

Note the rhyming of the fourth and eighth lines, a distant rhyme that creates a sense of unity. The control in composition echoes the controlled girl coping with heart-ache.

Question 5

critical

Answer 5

With a friendly smile,
With a critical eye you scanned,

Note the assonant internal rhyme of ‘friendly smile’ and ‘critical eye’. The mismatch between internal feelings and outward words is crucial to the poem.

With a ‘critical eye he scanned’ seems to indicate that he only likes beauty, suggesting that he is objectifying her and therefore not really a good judge. This is perhaps one of the reasons why later the speaker prefers a relationship with God.

Question 6

unripe

Answer 6

And said: It is still unripe

It is interesting that Rossetti chose the word ‘unripe’; as in Goblin Market, fruit is used to represent sexual pleasure and their ripeness fertility. Note also that the pronoun “it” objectifies the narrator.

Answer 7

Better wait awhile;
Wait while the skylarks pipe,

compare to Nora, sexually liberated? liberated to society’s standards of confinement, oxymoronic, the idea of freedom being in patriarchy

For an inter-textual reference see Shelley’s ‘Skylark’, where the bird suggests freedom and joy. The narrator is clearly not at this stage of liberation. This is emphasised by the repetition of ‘wait’.

Question 8

corn

Answer 8

Till the corn grows brown.

only accpeted when her love dies?

Question 9

broke

Answer 9

As you set it down it broke,–
Broke, but I did not wince;
I smiled at the speech you spoke,

use of caesura to signify brokenness

The imagery of her heart being broken as it is ‘set down’ is very powerful. Even more powerful is the fact that she ‘did not wince’. Significantly, she inverts the expectations of Victorian society, where women were said to be feeble and emotional. Here the speaker is self-controlled. There is a suggestion of pride that she can overcome her feelings.

+1

Question 10

questioned

Answer 10

But I have not often smiled
Since then, nor questioned since,

The speaker deals with her disappointment by the fact that she has ‘not questioned’ since. She has accepted the refusal with fortitude.

Question 11

corn-flowers

Answer 11

Nor cared for corn-flowers wild,
Nor sung with the singing bird.

The ‘corn-flowers wild’ grow in fields of crops and are destroyed at harvest time. This could be an echo of the line at the end of stanza two, ‘Till the corn grows brown.’

In folklore, cornflowers were worn by young men in love; if the flower faded too quickly, it was taken as a sign that the man’s love was not returned.

Question 12

omg

Answer 12

O my God, O my God

The speaker is emotionally free to love God. The brackets that in stanza one represented earthly love are now removed.

This is another example of an amphimacer, as in stanza one.

Question 13

judge

Answer 13

“judge me now”

turning to God to judge her relationship

Question 14

marred

Answer 14

This contemned of a man,
This marred one heedless day,
This heart take Thou to scan

Here ‘contemned’ means to scorn and ‘marred’ means to damage or spoil. She has been scorned by a man on one ‘heedless’ or ‘careless’ day; but now she is offering her heart to God.

Unlike the man, God would scan her heart thoroughly. Where the man looked merely at the surface, God looks at the depths of each individual.

Answer 15

Yea, hold it in Thy hold,
Whence none can pluck it out.

This indicates that God’s love is permanent, unlike the temporary romantic love she had for the man. When you love God, you cannot love someone else.
Rossetti never married. There were two men that she came close to marrying, but rejected them for religious reasons.

The imagery of holding and hands is continued, but the power is now with God.

The word ‘pluck’ has significance, notably in the Confessions of Saint Augustine, where he says ‘O Lord thou pluck’st me out’. Here, the speaker’s heart is safe with God, and ‘none can pluck it out’.

Answer 16

I shall not die, but live,–

This line links to the afterlife. With God’s love, her soul will live eternally in heaven. There is a neat antithetical balance to the opposites of living and dying.

Answer 17

Smile Thou and I shall sing,
But shall not question much.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

This links to the last two lines of the first stanza, where the narrator submits to the man she has feelings for. Here she is submitting to God. In stanza three where she says ‘nor questioned since’, she submits to her rejection. Here she has no need to question. Her devotion to God is her strength.

Here we see parallels between romantic love and religious devotion, that both involve obedience. Romantic love for a woman involves obedience to a man. Obedience to God, however, is seen as positive and a form of power.