Context - Echo

• Written in 1854, 'Echo' reflects the intense preoccupation with death and mourning characteristic of Victorian society, particularly in the wake of widespread epidemics and high mortality rates - The poem resonates with the era’s sentimental attitude toward the afterlife and spiritual visitation, as grieving individuals often sought comfort in dreams or supernatural encounters - Rossetti’s depiction of a lover returning in dreams evokes the popular Victorian desire to maintain emotional ties with the dead
• Rossetti, closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, channels their emphasis on sensual beauty, medievalism, and emotional sincerity in 'Echo' - The poem’s dreamlike imagery, rich sensory detail, and melancholic longing align with the movement’s aesthetic ideals - The use of nature, water, and spiritual yearning also mirrors the Brotherhood’s fascination with the intersection of the physical and ethereal
• As a woman writing in the 19th century, Rossetti subtly navigates constraints on female emotional expression by encoding personal sorrow within romantic and spiritual frameworks - 'Echo' can be read as a reclamation of feminine desire and mourning, as the speaker - presumably female - demands the return of a lost beloved to fulfil a deep emotional void - The intimate address and vulnerability in the voice offer insight into how Victorian women might covertly articulate grief and agency through poetry
• Rossetti's devout Anglo-Catholicism deeply influenced her poetic worldview, and 'Echo' is suffused with spiritual symbolism, particularly the notion of Paradise as the ultimate reunion - The paradoxical "too sweet, too bitter sweet" tone reveals the inner conflict between earthly longing and heavenly hope - Her religious sensibilities shape the poem’s conception of love as transcendent but deferred, aligning with her belief in divine love surpassing mortal attachments
• 'Echo' by Christina Rossetti uses the extended metaphor of a dream as a liminal space between life and death, embodying both desire and loss - The dream becomes a symbolic threshold where the speaker seeks to resurrect a lost love, momentarily escaping the finality of death - This metaphor allows Rossetti to blur the boundaries between memory and reality, highlighting the persistence of emotional longing even in the face of spiritual transcendence - Through this, she evokes the Pre-Raphaelite fascination with the ethereal and the unattainable, while simultaneously meditating on the soul’s yearning for reunion beyond mortality