Τwice

• AO1: In ‘Twice’, Rossetti explores… 

  • Redemption
  • Human love vs earthly love
  • Purification 
• Twice

  A poem written in 1864 and published in Rossetti's second collection, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems in 1866
• Twice

  • Has the fallen woman, who's heartbroken by a man, as its theme
  • Rossetti lays stress on ideal love's distance from reality
  • Provides a description of the experience of love with images of mutability
• Images in Twice

  • Harvesting and planting
  • Seasonal images
  • Images of over-ripeness and ripeness
• Natural analogs

  Used to represent naturally impelled passions, whether these are clearly erotic or more ethereal and vague
• Desire experienced by women was viewed as dangerous
• Gynaecologist William Acton wrote that the "majority of women… are not… troubled by any sexual feeling of any kind"
• Summary - Rossetti’s personal conflict between two loves - earthly and heavenly
• Structure - ABACDBC - lack of structure in the earth;y realm - shift from rigid to natural - the innate connection between man and god // six stanzas - one number off perfection - striving for this spiritual connection with God  
• I took my heart in my hand

  • past tense - narrative distance /diacope + alliteration + verb - personal control / metaphor - lack of control regarding the passion of love 
• (O my love, O my love),

  • Greek chorus - societal norms / brackets - something enclosed private and to be dismissed - juxtaposition to God / ‘o’ a sign of deep pain or passion - reversed throughout / amphimacer
• Yet a woman's words are weak;

  • alliterative ‘w’ - sense of woe / endstop - constriction of women by society  
  • similar to From the Antique
• You should speak, not I.

  • endstop + personal pronouns - defiance of the norm - endstop - she still possess the last word 
• “You took my heart in your hand / With a friendly smile”

  • Flips to male perspective, similar to No, TY, John
  • juxtaposing pronouns - societal roles 
• “With a critical eye you scanned / Then set it down,”

  • He only values her beauty, objectifying her. Speaker prefers a relationship with God instead. Women as commodities - Goblin Market
  • eyes - symbol of temptation - he is looking through a lens of lust
• “It is still unripe, Better wait awhile;...Till the corn goes brown”

  • Can be seen as a Euphemism of the speakers innocence and virginity, she is young and should not be ‘spoiled’ so quickly 
  • Skylark is a symbol of the joyous spirit of the divine. This can be inferred as her waiting for God’s allowance on her having sex
  • Corn - Wait for the time of harvest which is in autumn which is the season of death and decay.
  • Cornflower - Men wore it so show their celibacy
• “As you set it down it broke-/Broke, but I did not wince;”

  • Hyphen visually symbolises the break. Echoes the title “Twice” - a broken heart split into two, reflected by the two words ‘broke’
• "Nor cared for cornflowers wild, "

  • symbolic of beauty, purity, fertility / relation  - if they fade too quickly their love is unrequited 

    "Nor sung with the singing bird."

  • ‘I shall not hear the mocking bird’ / rejecting masculine advances 
• “I smiled at the speech you spoke / At your judgement that I heard”

  • Sibilance adds to feelings of sombre - misses the love of her beloved 
  • Could also represent temptation and betrayal. The spoke is harsh sounding to emphasise the cruelty of her beloved
• "I take my heart in my hand, "

  • shift of tense - her present and never ending journey with christ - 
• “(O my love, O my love)”, “O my God, O my God”

  • The emphatic ‘O’ emphasis the love she has
  • Human love  is seen as lesser and dismissable - this is seen with the use of parentheses as it is in a way limiting
  • Use of anaphora makes the phrase sound like a hymn - shows she is seeking redemption.
  • The speaker offers her heart as a confession of love. She has control over her heart and therefore her decisions - sense of vulnerability, she is taking a risk by exposing herself to the potential of rejection.
• "My broken heart in my hand: "

  • Psalms 147 ‘he healeth the broken in heart, And bindery their wounds’/ broken heart - split into two - 
• "Thou hast seen, judge Thou. "

  • ‘I am the way the truth the life no-one can come to the father except through me / juxtaposing ‘critical eye’ - control of God 
• "My hope was written on sand, "

  • Matthew 7 - foolish man who built his hand on the sand 
  • Ingenuine promise because words written on sand will fade away. Human love is volatile. Allusion to folklore - The Sandman. Sands are a symbolism of dreams and sleep. Shows her hope was nothing more than a dream.
  • Perhaps an hourglass - Her hope ran out or love was lost over time.
• "Refine with fire its gold,"

  • ‘my fruit is better than the finest gold’
  • God’s love is above all.