Soeur Louise De La Miséricorde

• AO1: In ‘Soeur Louise de la Miséricorde', Rossetti explores… 

  • The conflict of desire as a convention embedded in youth
  •  the sacrifice of trivial vanities to obtain religious maturity
  • This sacrifice requires vulnerability. The most vain sin of all is not desire solely but desire for something fleeting. By rejecting Desire altogether Rosetti also expresses her fears in believing in a God that may once again forsake her
• AO3:-  

  • based on Duchess de la Valliere who was mistress to King Louis XIV. She bore him 4 children and then left the court and became a Carmellite nun.
  • In Maturin’s The Fatal Revenge Rosalia is torn between romantic and spiritual love. Rossetti's writing was very much influenced by Gothic fiction 
  • Jansenism- 17th century french movement to renounce sins and join monasteries and nunneries
  • She wrote this poem aged 51, towards the end of her life.
• Rhyme Scheme: ABBAB for first three stanzas:

  • once again reinforces the notion of repetition. Also illustrates the cyclical nature of earthly love’s torment in being enticed by the fleeting and transient nature of the “rose of life, all gone to prickles”.
  • AAAAA for last stanza - Creates unsettling tone; perhaps desire had overcome our reader
• “I have desired, and I have been desired; / But now the days are over of desire, / Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;”

  • first person narrator (Lousie de Villiere) begins in emphatic mood. Note of pride and acceptance. Jump of tenses ‘Dying’ - desire is still there, not dead yet. Symbol of desire “dust to dust” mocks a funeral service
  • ‘the LORD formed man from the dust of the ground and blew life into him’ - ‘and to dust you shall return’ - ‘dust’ the earthly body - akrasia / now - shift of tense / ‘fire’ - desire - hellfire
• Where is the hire for which my life was hired?

  • ‘hire’ - purpose - existential dread
•  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

  • 1 Ecclesiastes 1 'vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ - origins of the vanitas artistic movement - criticism of capitalist society - Roman Catholicism 
• “Longing and love… Longing and love”

  • The anaphora indicates the “pang’s” of longing for a secure love that incessantly disturb Rosetti. The repetitive nature of the poem(“vanity of vanities”...) also demonstrates how individual judgement of this world is vain without God. Similar to Up-Hill the dependance on God is highlighted as Rosetti seems to be strenuously fighting against the spirit of futile love but it is ultimately vain without God’s overflowing love
• Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,

  • anaphoric / Plosive - contempt / morality of the flesh ‘the lord is for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land’  / caesura - earthly desire chasing after her
• Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,

  • ‘love is patient love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.’ / ‘The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of the fool is in the house of pleasure.’ Ecclesiastes 7;4 / caesura  - the repetitive nature of sin / oxymoron
• Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,

  • ‘’drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss’ - distance from desire / Christ’s sacrifice / baptism - the rebirth of man in Christ 
• Turning my garden plot to barren mire;

  • fertility - a gift from God ‘blessed is the fruit of thy womb’ ‘fruit’- Jesus -  barren in spirit 
• Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,

  • reversal of love struck / fire - the trinity - death of christ in her heart - spiritual isolation