Rossetti

• SONG: WHEN I AM DEAD MY DEAREST context

  • rejects mourning culture: Victoria & Albert
  • worries about her health due to her illness and fear that she would die young
  • response to her brother’s poem about women missing their partners after they die
  • written at age 18
• SONG: WHEN I AM DEAD MY DEAREST quotes

  • “When I am dead, my dearest”
  • “Sing no sad songs for me”
  • “And if thou wilt” x2
  • “Plant thou no roses at my head nor shady cypress tree”
  • “I shall not” (x3)
  • “see the shadows” “feel the rain” “hear the nightingale sing on as if in pain”
• REMEMBER context

  written at age 19, released when she was 32

  religious mania

  released months before leaving James Collinson

  mourning culture
• REMEMBER QUOTES

  • “Remember me” x2 vs. “Forget me”
  • “Gone away, / gone far away into the silent land”
  • “No more” x2
  • “Hold me by the hand”
  • “Day by day you tell me of our future that you planned”
  • “I half turn, yet turning stay”
• FROM THE ANTIQUE CONTEXT

  • inner conflict of religion v. feminism
  • pagan speaker
  • not published in her lifetime
  • battles ill health so always thought about death
• FROM THE ANTIQUE QUOTES

  • “It’s a weary life, it is, she said”
  • “Doubly blank in a woman’s lot”
  • “I wish and I wish I were a man”
  • “Not a body not a soul”
  • “Not so much as a grain of dust from pole to pole”
  • “Would wake and weary and fall asleep."
• ECHO CONTEXT

  • rejected James Collinson and Charles Cayley due to religion
  • Echo & Narcissus
  • Narcissus obsessed with himself
  • Echo forced to repeat the words of others
• ECHO QUOTES

  • “Come to me” “Come in” “Come with”
  • “Silence of the night” “Speaking silence of a dream”
  • “How sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet”
  • “Slow door” “letting in, lets out no more”
  • “I may give pulse for pulse breath for breath”
  • “Speak low, lean low”
• SHUT OUT CONTEXT

  • female prisoners
  • Adam & Eve and the Fall
  • rejected John Brett and James Collinson
  • midlife crisis?
  • previous title: What happened to me?
• SHUT OUT QUOTES

  • “The door was shut”
  • “Iron bars”
  • “My garden” “Mine” “It was lost”
  • “Shadowless spirit” “Blank and unchanging like the grave”
  • “He answered not” “the spirit was silent”
  • “Straining eyes” “Peering” “Blinded w/ tears”
  • “Bid my home remember me till I come to it again”
• IN THE ROUND TOWER CONTEXT

  • Indian Rebellion of 1957 led by Captain Skene where the Indians revolted, killing Skene and his wife
  • They did not commit suicide but were killed so Rossetti had to add a note
• IN THE ROUND TOWER QUOTES

  • “A hundred, a thousand to one”
  • “Not a hope in the world remained”
  • “Gained and gained and gained”
  • “His pale, young wife”
  • “Young, strong, so full of life”
  • “The agony struck them dumb”
  • “I wish I could bare the pang for both, I wish I could bare the pang alone”
  • “Close his arm about her now, Close her cheek to his, Close the pistol to her brow, God forgive them this!”
  • “Thus to kiss and die”
• NO, THANK YOU, JOHN CONTEXT

  • Rejected James Collinson, John Brett and Charles Cayley
  • Speculated to be about John Brett who was described as ‘obnoxious’
  • Patriarchal standards for women in marriages, ownership, commodification,
  • John - loved most by Jesus; men being favoured more in the eyes of God; microcosm for men ‘John Doe’
• NO, THANK YOU, JOHN QUOTES

  • I never said I loved you, John:
  • Why will you tease me day by day,
  • And wax a weariness
  • Why will you haunt me with a face as wan / As shows an hour-old ghost?
  • don't remain single for my sake / Who can't perform the task.
  • I have no heart?-Perhaps I have not;
  • Use your common sense.
  • I'd rather answer "No" to fifty Johns / Than answer "Yes" to you.
  • Let us strike hands as hearty friends;
  • Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,- / No, thank you, John.
• MAUDE CLARE CONTEXT

  • Madonna-whore complex
  • Angel of the home vs. fallen woman
  • Double standard in the patriarchy
  • Dante painted a woman washing her hands off an affair
• MAUDE CLARE QUOTES

  • “Out of the church she followed them”
  • “His bride" "village maid" MC "was like a queen.”
  • “May Nell and you but live as true As we have done for years”
  • “Your father Had just your tale to tell; But he was not so pale as you, Nor I so pale as Nell.”
  • "My lord was pale with inward strife"
  • “That day we waded ankle-deep/ For lilies in the beck:”
  • “Here’s my half of the faded leaves We plucked from the budding bough,”
  • “I wash my hands thereof.”
  • “And what you leave, I’ll take, And what you spurn, I’ll wear; For he’s my lord for better and worse, And him I love Maude Clare.”
• WINTER: MY SECRET CONTEXT

  • Originally called ‘Nonsense’
  • Carpe diem - reverses trope of a man make an advance on a woman
• WINTER: MY SECRET QUOTES

  • “I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:”
  • “And you're too curious: fie!”
  • “my secret's mine, and I won't tell.”
  • “Today's a nipping day, a biting day,”
  • “one wants a shawl, a veil, a cloak, and other wraps”
  • “I cannot ope to everyone who taps,”
  • “come bounding and surrounding me”
  • “come buffeting, astounding me”
  • “nipping and clipping thro’ my wraps and all”
  • “I wear my mask for warmth”
  • “Nor even May, whose flowers/ One frost may wither thro’ the sunless hours”
  • “when drowsy birds sing less and less,/ and golden fruit is ripening to excess”
• SOEUR LOUISE CONTEXT

  • Saint Louise - opened a women’s convent
  • Duchess de la Valliere - Louis 14th’s mistress, became a nun
  • Misericorde - long dagger that grants knights a honourable death
  • Written by Rossetti at age 51
  • Jansenism - 17th century French movement of renouncing sins and becoming a nun
• SOEUR LOUISE QUOTES

  • “I have desired and I have been desired”
  • “Dust and dying embers mock my fire”
  • “Where is the hire for which my life was hired?”
  • “Oh vanity of vanities, desire!” x5
  • “Longing and love” x2
  • “Pangs of a perished pleasure”
  • “Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,”
  • “Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,”
  • “Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,”
  • “Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,”
  • “Turning my garden plot to barren mire;”
  • “Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,”
• UPHILL CONTEXT

  • Victorian pilgrimage
  • Rossetti’s struggles with her religion, health, love and family
• UPHILL QUOTES

  • "Does the road wind uphill all the way? / Yes, to the very end."
  • "But is there for the night a resting-place? / A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin."
  • "You cannot miss that inn."
  • "Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? / They will not keep you waiting at that door."
  • "Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? / Of labour you shall find the sum."
  • "Will there be beds for me and all who seek? / Yea, beds for all who come."
• A BIRTHDAY CONTEXT

  • Devotional poem - Rossetti was a devout Anglican
  • Pre-Raphaelite Art movement which her brother Dante was apart of - celebrated nature, romanticism in arts and poetry
• A BIRTHDAY QUOTES

  • "My heart is like a singing bird / Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;"
  • "My heart is like an apple-tree / Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;"
  • "My heart is gladder than all these / Because my love is come to me."
  • “Raise me” “dais of silk and down;”
  • “Hang it” “vair and purple dyes;”
  • “Carve it” “in doves and pomegranates,”
  • “peacocks with a hundred eyes;”
  • “Work it” in “gold and silver grapes, / In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;”
  • "Because the birthday of my life / Is come, my love is come to me."
• GOOD FRIDAY CONTEXT

  • Written in 1862, published in a book of Tractarian work in 1864 which was a combined of devotional hymns and poems with modern verse
  • Good Friday - crucifixion & sacrifice of Jesus
  • Peter was crucified upside down
• GOOD FRIDAY QUOTES

  • "Am I stone and not a sheep"
  • "number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss, / And yet not weep?"
  • “Not so” x3 (anaphora)
  • “Those women loved… exceeding grief lamented thee”
  • “Fallen Peter weeping bitterly”
  • “the Sun and Moon / Which hid their faces in starless sky,”
  • “A horror of great darkness at broad noon–”
  • “I, only I.”
  • "But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;"
  • "Turn and look once more / And smite a rock."
• GOBLIN MARKET CONTEXT

  • Volunteer at St Mary Magdalene helping fallen women
  • Work at Highgate Penitentiary, helping to rehabilitate former prostitutes
  • Possibly dedicated to her sister Mary ‘To M.F.R” who reportedly helped her avoid eloping with a married man
• GOBLIN MARKET LAURA QUOTES

  • “Golden curl” “precious golden lock” “dropped a tear more rare than pearl”
  • “Sucked” x3
  • “Sucked until her lips were sore”
  • “Knew not was it night or day”
  • “Hair grew thin and gray”
  • “Dwindled”
  • "Full moon doth turn / to swift decay and burn / her fire away”
• GOBLIN MARKET JEANIE QUOTES

  • “Sought them by night and day”
  • “Dwindled and grew grey”
  • “fell with the first snow”
  • “no grass will grow / where she lies low”
• GOBLIN MARKET GOBLINS VS LIZZIE QUOTES

  • “Chattering like magpies”
  • “Fluttering like pigeons”
  • “Hugged” “kissed” “caressed”
  • “Twitched her hair out by the root”
  • “Like a beacon left alone”
  • “Laughed in heart”
  • “Golden fire”
• GOBLIN MARKET ENDING QUOTES

  • “Undone in mine undoing and ruined in my ruin”
  • “Is it death or is it life?”
  • “Life out of death”
  • “Light danced in her eyes”
  • “Tears once again”
• TWICE CONTEXT

  • Rossetti was engaged twice; falling in love w/ God twice
• TWICE QUOTES

  • “I took my heart in my hand”
  • “You (man) vs “I take my heart in my hand” ( God)
  • “(O my love, O my love)” / “O my God, O my God”
  • “Yet a woman’s words are weak, You should speak, not I”
  • “Friendly smile” “critical eye you scanned”
  • “Then set it down”
  • “As you set it down, it broke - Broke”
  • “I smiled at the speech you spoke”
  • “My hope was written in sand”
  • “Refine with fire its gold”
  • “Yea hold it in Thy hold, Whence none can pluck it out.”
  • “I shall not die, but live”
  • “All that I have I bring, All that I am I give,”
  • “Smile Thou and I shall sing, But shall not question much.”