Context - Twice

• 'Twice' reflects Pre-Raphaelite ideals through its emphasis on intense personal emotion, spiritual sincerity, and symbolic natural imagery, aligning with the movement's resistance to industrial modernity and Victorian propriety - Rossetti, though often distanced from the visual Pre-Raphaelites, internalized their values by merging aestheticism with moral depth, crafting a poem that critiques societal expectations while elevating divine love - The poem's structure - two distinct appeals, first to a man and then to God - mirrors the Pre-Raphaelite interest in dualism and transformation
• The speaker’s initial submission to male judgement in 'Twice' echoes the Victorian ideal of female passivity, but Rossetti subverts this by ultimately rejecting human validation in favour of divine grace - Her personal rejections of marriage, notably to James Collinson and Charles Cayley due to religious incompatibility, inform the poem’s theme of choosing spiritual integrity over romantic fulfilment - The speaker's emotional arc in 'Twice' can be read as a critique of marriage as a restrictive institution that demanded the silencing of female voices
• Rossetti’s devout Anglo-Catholicism, shaped by the Oxford Movement, permeates 'Twice' as the speaker transitions from earthly desire to spiritual submission - The invocation of God in the second half of 'Twice' exemplifies the Tractarian belief in divine judgement and purification, aligning the speaker's broken heart with the soul's journey toward sanctification - Her relinquishing of worldly hope in favour of eternal salvation reflects Rossetti’s religious belief that only divine love is redemptive and enduring
• Though 'Twice' begins with the speaker deferring to male authority, the progression reveals a psychological emancipation as she claims agency over her own narrative - Her emotional detachment from worldly love and realignment with God can be interpreted as a form of self-reclamation, mirroring Rossetti’s personal pattern of resisting romantic entanglements that compromised her beliefs - In rejecting societal norms, Twice carves out a space for feminine resilience rooted not in defiance, but in spiritual sovereignty
• 'Twice' by Rossetti employs the extended metaphor of the heart as a tangible, vulnerable object to chart the speaker’s emotional and spiritual transformation - Initially, the heart is offered to a man, symbolising human love and the fragility of feminine vulnerability under patriarchal judgement - As the poem progresses, the heart becomes a sacred offering to God, signifying a shift from earthly dependence to divine submission - thus reinforcing Rossetti’s recurrent theme of spiritual transcendence over romantic fulfilment