Winter: My Secret

• • Carpe Diem-  seduction poetry - reversed allowing for women to take over the narrative 
• • Structure - fluctuating pace - sense of passion and playfulness - instability - freedom from shackles of a patriarchal system / childish curiosity - natural chain of thought / conversation - natural language / innocence of innate desires / fallen women rejected from society - no longer part of the norm 
• Title - previously nonsense - dismissive / suspense - personal ownership - hesitation - limitations of faith / semicolon - elaboration of winter / winter - new beginning - chance of new life - time of redemption / reflection on sin
• I tell my secret? No indeed, not I;

  • rhetorical question - suspense / repetition of personal pronouns - emphasis on personal pleasure / immediate caesura - in media res 
  • “Secret” could symbolise her virginity - doesn't want to tell the receiver whether or not she has lost it.
• "Perhaps some day, who knows?"

  • conversational - natural flow of conversation / juxtaposition - evasive - toying with audience to engage / ultimate power - rejecting the patriarchal view of women 
• "But not today; it froze, and blows and snows,"

  • internal rhyme/low diction - childish joy - innocence / semantic field of winter - abstract pathetic fallacy - reflective of hostile attitudes / juxtaposition between tense - softening impact  / sibilance + elongated vowel sounds - softness + stretch out sentence - waiting the audience’s time - loss of fertility 
• "Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell."

  • personal ownership - the lack of power given to women - reversal of role - childish - lack of power given to grown women. 

  "Or, after all, perhaps there’s none:"

  • juxtaposition - increased tensions 

  "Suppose there is no secret after all,"

  • ‘secret’ - reflective of virginity 
  • Personal pronoun “my” reflects a personal expression of power
  • Ambiguity is key as answer to this question could be a deal breaker in Victorian society.
• "But only just my fun."

  • euphemism for sex 
• "Today’s a nipping day, a biting day;" -

  • sexual euphemisms OR reflective of the brutalist nature of desire - maslow's hierarchy of needs 
• “In which one wants a shawl”, “veil”, “cloak”, “wraps”

  • Adds to the tone of secrecy and the covering of oneself. Perhaps this alludes to prostitution in the victorian era
  • pathetic fallacy - her loneliness /Ephesians 6:10 ‘Therefore put on the full armor of God’ - semantic field of protection 
  • A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: - safety - rejection of prying eyes / ‘every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head’ - 1 Corinthians (st Paul speaks about the importance of women wearing head coverings in prayer)  - progression of verbs - the growing desire of men 
• “I cannot ope to everyone who taps”

  • Ambiguous: judgement from men in society? Sexual innuendo that links to prostitutes? Emotional vulnerability that women were prone to?
  • importance of female chastity / repetitive motif of doors - ability to allow for earthy love and consequently earthly corruption / boon drab between how far the right choice 
• "Come bounding and surrounding me," - animalistic predator prey situation - again the immoral; nature of desire / fear of contamination to earthly desires 

  
  

  "Come buffeting, astounding me," - human desire - imperative 

  
  

  "Nipping and clipping thro’ my wraps and all."
• "I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows - "

  • preportation - desire to live in faith for the rest of her life / hiding from reality and from the sin of our worlds 
• "To be pecked at by every wind that blows? "

  • unrelenting desire and the omnipresence of sin / repression of sexual desire / fallen women - a fear / ‘every’ - omnipresence of sin / reduction of men to sexual desire - women are meat and used of food for men 
• You would not peck? I thank you for good will,

  • rhetorical question - innocent desire - juxtaposing requirements of faith /Eskimo’s - a symbol of love 
• “Spring’s an expansive time: yet I don’t trust / March with its peck of dust, / Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers / Nor even May, whose flowers / One frost may wither thro’ the sunless hours”

  • Read in conjunction with the last two lines of the previous stanza, this third stanza could be understood as referring to the changeability and unreliability of human nature.
  • the fluctuating will of man - lack of stability for women / growth of new life and change 
  • ‘and to ashes you shall return’ - Charles Darwin’s theories / fleeting movements of self doubt
• "Perhaps some languid summer day, "

  • laziness + sloth - cardinal vice - juxtaposing with desire  -

  "When drowsy birds sing less and less, "

  • diacope / ‘i shall not hear the nightingale' - pleasure via death 

  "And golden fruit is ripening to excess, "

  • original sin / ‘my fruit is better than gold even the purest gold’ - pleasure in the land of the lord 
• "If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud,"

  • repetition / ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ Matthew 5:48
  • There will never be a season appropriate for a woman to reveal her secrets. The world will never be perfect for women
• "And the warm wind is neither still nor loud, "

  • alliteration - unsure - suspense no answer - reflection of society’s unrealistic values for women. - playful and mocking
• "Perhaps my secret I may say"

  • sibilance - man's inclination to sin / temptation. / fulfilling part of religion 
• "Or you may guess"

  • breakers the fourth walls / lack of endstop - unending struggle with faith
  • ‘Or’ introduces a probable tone to the poem which interrupts the fixed attitude the speaker had before - perhaps they are surrendering their power that presented itself within the secret
• AO1: In ‘Winter: My Secret’, Rossetti explores… 

  • The silent existence of power
  • The power of women in a patriarchal society