Rossetti Revision 2
Rossetti
Revision
Christina Rossetti:
Poem Summary and Analysis of "Up-hill" (1861)
Summary: Over the course of a journey, the narrator asks
her guide eight questions about the road ahead. The narrator asks if the roads
are all up-hill and if the journey will take all day. The guide replies in the
affirmative. Next, the narrator asks if there is a place to rest for the night
and if the darkness will obscure said resting-place from their view. The guide
assures the narrator that there is an inn and they will not be able to miss it.
The narrator's fifth question is about which other travelers will be on the
road. At the inn, the narrator asks if the other travelers would prefer for her
to knock or call out. The guide tells the narrator that someone will open the
door. Lastly, the narrator asks if there will be a bed for her. The guide tells
her that there are beds for everyone.
Analysis: The question and answer form is common in
devotional writing, because it encourages the reader to contemplate his or her
own response to the question. The guide addresses the narrator as “my
friend," which is also what Christ called his disciples. The poem is
comprised of four stanzas with four lines each, following the ABAB rhyme
scheme. In this way, the rhyme scheme separates the traveler from the guide,
and the simplicity alleviates the pressure of the difficult topic. The meter
starts with a trochee and shifts into alternating iambic pentameter and
trimeter. The pace is consistent, just like the narrator's steady up-hill
climb.
The journey
is the prominent symbol in this poem, and is open to a few different
interpretations. The first interpretation is that the poem symbolizes the
journey from birth to death. The darkening sky foreshadows the end of life, and
the inn represents the final resting place. Considering Rossetti’s religious
background, this final resting place could be interpreted as Heaven. The act of
knocking on the door represents the Christian confession of sin and the need
for forgiveness before admittance into Heaven. When describing this moment,
Rossetti chooses to use a nearly verbatim quote from the Gospel of Matthew.
Rossetti frames death as a form of respite after the tiring journey of life.
There is a
slight possible variation on the interpretation that the road represents the
journey of life. Already careworn, the weary traveler wonders if life grows
easier as she grows older. However, the guide tells her that the road that
remains is up-hill and arduous. This interpretation does not resolve the
symbolism behind the inn. It is possible that the inn could represent death,
which also provides an opportunity for rest at the end of the road.
A third
reading seems less likely because of Rossetti’s religious views, but it is
worth examining. This school of thought considers the journey to represent
Christian purgatory. In this case, the inn would also represent Heaven, just
like in the first interpretation. “Up-hill” is a classic example of Rossetti’s
devotional literature, which dealt with doubt as well as eternal assurance. The
road takes on several meanings, each revealing a facet of Rossetti's
contemplation of life and its hardships.
A Critical Analysis on 'An Apple Gathering' by Christina Rossetti
The
poem ‘An Apple Gathering’ by Christina Rossetti talks about a betrayed love or
an unfulfillment of love. The condition of a betrayed girl and the harsh
treatment on her by the society is vividly pictured in this poem. The poet
symbolizes the action of losing chastity or virginity, by the action of
plucking ‘pink blossoms’ of an apple tree. After losing her chastity and being
betrayed, the speaker faces a dangling condition which is symbolized by her
‘dangling basket’. This condition is also contrasted showing the ‘heaped-up
basket’ of the other girls. When she sees other girls not betrayed in
love happily singing, smiling, she laments over her ill fate. The use of
symbolism to show all these, is really very authentic throughout the whole
poem.
The
idea of losing chastity comes to the mind of the reader just at the beginning
stanza of the poem.
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair;
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
‘Blossom’
means a small flower which grows in a fruit producing tree and goes on to
become a fruit afterwards. So, if the blossoms are plucked, there will be no
fruit afterwards. Such is the case here in this poem which says that the
speaker foolishly plucked the ‘pink blossoms’ of her‘apple tree and wore them
all that evening’ in her hair to find no apple in‘due season’. This can very
logically be interpreted that the speaker has given away her chastity being
involved in a love relationship. As she wore the blossoms in her hair all the
evening, it suggests that she willingly plucked those blossoms and was very
happy. This clearly means that she willingly and happily gave away her chastity
to her lover. Then there is a very important phrase ‘due season’ which
obviously is the symbolism of the time after being betrayed. So, finding no
apples in the tree in due season tells the story of the speakers finding
herself aloof from her chastity after the betrayal of her lover. So, in brief
the poet here has described this betrayal with the metaphor of plucking pink
blossoms.
The
next four lines describe the social circumstances of the speaker after
‘plucking pink blossoms’ which actually tries to portray the picture of the
social condition of the speaker after the matter of losing her virginity and
being betrayed becomes a very common issue to discuss among her neighbours. The
lines are-
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the self-same
track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.
The
phrase ‘dangling basket’ here symbolizes the dangling condition of the speaker.
It is obvious that after losing her chastity, the life of that girl usually has
no particular way, no particular standpoint and no particular future. So life
becomes uncertain and that is why the condition is ‘dangling’. The use of
metaphor is again very much effective. The speakers’ basket has no apple and it
is empty and that is why it dangles when she walks. With no ‘apple’ or chastity
in her she is also empty and her life is dangling thus. The neighbors
are‘mocking’ her seeing her dangling empty basket which clearly shows the very
common picture of the society in which the girl is living. This betrayal is
undoubtedly a great issue to gossip and the betrayed girl is so a person to be
mocked. It is very conventional that others will mock or tease someone behind
his/her back. So this betrayed girl will have to face so many ill treatments
and mocking when she will pass the ‘self-same track’. Especially when it is the
girl's own fault to bring her ill-state, she has no other way except tolerating
these. The same path which she passes with the others in her society becomes
afar more difficult road to her than the others.
Then
comes the contrastive situation of other girls around the speaker in the next
stanza.
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother's home was near.
This
contrast is done with the phrase ‘heaped-up basket’. Where there is an
emptiness is shown of the speaker with the phrase ‘dangling basket’ in the last
stanza, here the case is completely different. The speaker names of two
girls ‘Lilian and Lilias’ who are smiling when they are ‘trudging by’. So the
two girls are walking slowly or with heavy steps as they have to carry their
‘heaped-up basket’ full of apples. But they are not at all unhappy to carry
this ‘heaped-up basket’ as they are smiling and singing in sweet-voice. When
does a woman usually bear the utmost pain yet feel no pain at all? If this
question is answered, the answer will be at the time of their ‘pregnancy’. Here
Lilian and Lilias are ‘trudging by’ meaning walking with big steps which can
easily be interpreted that these two girls are pregnant and as they are
carrying child, they feel no pain at all rather they are happily smiling and
singing. This interpretation becomes even more logical when in the last line
the speaker talks about their mother’s home. It is a very common tradition that
at the time of pregnancy a woman usually goes to her mother’s home and here the
two women are on the way to their mother’s home. So, these two girls are not
betrayed in love like the speaker of this poem because they are not unhappy
like her. They are happily carrying child and going to their mother’s home.
This is the perfect contrast condition shown in these four lines. Moreover,
there is an authentic use of‘pathetic fallacy’ when it is said that the
‘heaped-up basket’ is teasing the speaker ‘like a jeer’. Here the speaker
apparently wants to say that Lilian and Lilias have apples in their basket
where as her basket is empty which clearly is suggesting that when the other
girls are happy in their life, the speaker is empty losing her most precious
thing in her life. Those girls may have lost virginity like her and carrying a
child in their womb but they are not victims of betrayed love like her. And
that is why undoubtedly they are heaped with happiness. On the contrary the
speaker is in a dangling state. How can a woman being empty tolerate this happy
situation of other women? She will rather think that this situation could be
hers if everything were alright. She could be a same happy girl like them. And
this thought of her will definitely kill her inside though by lips she will be
able to utter no words. That is the state of the speaker only to see good
situations of others and become burnt inside.
The
next stanza continues to show the contrast situation of another girl called
‘Plump Gertrude’.
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.
In
this stanza a vital symbolism is presented in the phrase ‘a stronger hand’
which suggests the lover or may be the husband of Plump Gertrude. Plump
Gertrude is walking on the same street like the other two girls called Lilian
and Lilias mentioned in the previous stanza. Her basket is also full like them.
She is being helped by her man while she is walking and that man is not only
helping in walking but also talking to her. It is very usual that when a wife
is pregnant she needs walking and a caring husband undoubtedly will accompany
her in her walk. That is what the picture here in this poem which is even more
intolerable for the speaker. The reason
is that this girl is with her man and in this very stage of the speaker’s life
what she is utterly missing is none other than a caring beloved. That is why
the voice of this man, the presence of this man with Plump Gertrude is‘more sweet’
to her than the song singing by Lilian and Lilias. Just like this girl Plump
Gertrude she could be in her lover’s arms and living a happy life. This picture
of Plump Gertrude could have been hers if she was blessed in love. The man of
hers could be with her and just like this talk to her with his sweet voice.
This stronger hand here not only suggests a man who is only helping in a walk
but also this stronger hand suggests a person who will always be by the side of
this girl for the whole walk of life. This stronger hand seems promising to
help this girl in her every weakness, in her every bad patches, in her every
pain and suffering just like he is doing now. This stronger hand is a person to
whom this girl Plump Gertrude can depend even with her closed eyes. This
promise of lifetime shown in the couple of Plump Gertrude and her man is
stabbing her heart as she is not blessed in love rather tragically betrayed.
The
next stanza presents for the first time the lover of the speaker and the very
reason why the speaker has willingly given her chastity up.
Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.
Here
the speaker is lamenting uttering the name of her lover ‘Willie’ and asking him
the question which only can come from a broken heart. She asks Willie if her ‘love’
was ‘less worth’ than the ‘apples’. It can only mean if her love was less
worthy to Willie than her chastity. Was Willie with her only to take her
chastity? Did he not see the love of her? And if he saw the love, was it
nothing to him? On the contrary she counted ‘rosiest apple on the earth of far
less worth than love’. Unquestionably speaker’s chastity is suggested by the
phrase ‘rosiest apple’. To her love was the most important thing and everything
else is less worthy. She did not at all think that her lover will come out a
betrayer and leave her in this life of loneliness and utmost sufferings. For
love she trusted and only for love she considered the chastity, the most
important thing of a girl’s life, of far less worth.
Then
in the next stanza the speaker remembers the days of her with her lover and by
that the very nature of her lover is revealed.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!
She
tells that it was her lover ‘stooped to talk’ and he used to laughing and
listening to her while he was talking to her right in this way in which the
speaker is standing now. This lover is just a man of chance. He has no care for
love. He only intended to impress the girl and enjoy her chastity. That is why
to impress her he even stooped to talk, he laughed while he is talking, and
with fake concern he listened what she says. All these were done only to win
the heart and cast that away later. This image of the lover is actually telling
the story of how this kind of lustful and clever persons tricks the girls like
the speaker here. After all these when the lover betrays her, she finds herself
alone in the same way on which they used to walk again. This walking is again
suggests the future life of the speaker. She thought to walk with her lover for
all her life, in this way it was there to walk together but it never will be.
The agony of a broken heart is vividly shown here. May be this lover Willie is
making business with any other girl, may be he is taking lot more other chances
but this girl has none to walk with her now. She must walk alone now in this
pathetic world of her.
The
last stanza again brings the picture of the society in treating her and the
harsh reality around her.
I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.
Here
the speaker being all alone let her neighbours pass her but the latest among
them comes to her only to say that the night is growing cold and hastened in
his way. This suggests the common scenario of society when someone is in
distress. Almost everybody has no concern with her fate, all of them are busy
in their own walk of life. They have no time to think of others, they have no
time to lose in any others sake. That is how society goes. If one stands on his
street, one will only watch others pass. No matter how big one's trouble is,
one will have to face it alone. But the situation is even tougher when some so
called well-wishers try to give advice rather than really helping. That is what
here is happening in this poem when the speaker finds one person coming to her
and saying that the night is growing cold as if the speaker cannot see that.
Instead of really asking why the speaker is standing alone rather than walking
while the night is growing cold, the neighbour is saying that the night is
growing cold. And he bothers not an answer from the speaker. He hastens in his
way. It is like telling a person in distress that he is in distress and leaving
him. The person knows he is in distress. So, is it of any use? The speaker
knows that the night is growing cold but she instead of walking loiters. Here
the symbolism of night is of a great importance. The night stands for the night
like condition of the speaker. Her life has now no purpose and so she only
loiters instead of walking. She has nowhere to go like Lilian, Lilias or Plump
Gertrude, she has no destiny, no real meaning of life. That is why even
the 'dews' were falling she 'loitered still'. This negative imagery of dews
suggest that when her life becomes tougher and tougher, she has no other way
except loitering. She has lost all the strength to walk, She does not know what
to do as everything seems to her meaningless.
Thus
the poem ends with telling the error of a judgment and the result of it. The
girl was confident about the loyalty of her lover but it proves otherwise. She
trusted and gave away herself too soon. That is why she ends up measuring the
difference between what is and what could have been. She embraces endless
sufferings, endless loneliness, endless lamenting and endless loitering.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips
Christina Rossetti:
Poems Summary and Analysis of "Remember" (1862)
Summary:
The
narrator, who presumably represents Rossetti, addresses her beloved and
encourages him to remember her after her death. She asks him to remember her
even when his memory of her begins to fade. Eventually, the narrator gives this
person (it is unclear if he or she is real or imagined) her permission to
forget her gradually because it is better to "forget and smile" than
to "remember and be sad."
Analysis:
“Remember”
is a Petrarchan sonnet in iambic pentameter, consisting of an ABBA ABBA octave
and a CDE CDE sestet.
Rossetti
repeats the word “remember” throughout the entire poem, as if the narrator
fears that her beloved will not heed her request. Rossetti also uses repetition
to underline the vast boundary between life and death, writing “gone away,” and
later, “gone far away.” The “silent land” is a symbol of death, emphasizing the
narrator's loneliness without her beloved rather, which is stronger than her
fear of death itself. Acceptance of death is common in Pre-Raphaelite
philosophy. Pre-Raphaelites believed that material troubles pale in comparison
to the struggles of the mind.
The tone of
the octave is contemplative and reconciliatory on the topic of death. The
narrator can finally be at peace because she has renounced her desire for
earthly pleasures, such as the physical presence of her beloved. She is even
accepting of death, content to exist only in her beloved's memory. However, she
has not yet made peace with the possibility that her lover will forget her;
this form of death would be more painful than her physical expiration.
Even though
the narrator seems to reach peace with her death at the end of the octave, the
Pre-Raphaelite belief system demands a further renunciation of human desire.
The narrator’s tone changes with the volta, which is the break between the
octave and the sestet. The volta typically accompanies a change in attitude,
which is true in this poem. The narrator even renounces the need to be
remembered, which is ironic because the poem is titled “Remember.” She wishes
for her beloved to be happy, even if that means forgetting her. The narrator
sacrifices her personal desire in an expression of true love.
"Remember"
ultimately deals with the struggle between physical existence and the
afterlife. Rossetti grapples with the idea of a physical body, which is subject
to decay and death, and how it relates to an eternal soul.
'Echo'
- Synopsis and commentary
Synopsis:
Throughout the poem, the speaker (now metaphorically, if not actually, dead) is
calling a lost love to come back to her in his/her dreams so as s/he may
remember the times s/he once enjoyed. Although the term ‘echo' is not mentioned
in the main body of the poem, the notion of an echoing voice is made apparent
through various repetitions.
Rossetti
composed Echo in 1854 and first published it in Goblin Market and
Other Poems in 1862.
Lyric poetry
A
lyric poem is a short poem
that is spoken by one speaker expressing his or her thoughts and feelings about
a certain situation or person. The short length of the poem often means that
the speaker has to leave much unsaid and concentrate on emotion rather than
narrative. The poem is therefore more concerned with conveying feelings with
telling a story. It is often characterised with the directness and naturalness
of expression.
More on lyric poetry: In classical
Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre. The
lyre is a stringed instrument which is similar to a harp. It is played by a
singer who uses it to emphasise the lyrics of their song. Originally, lyres
were created out of animal shells, skins and body parts. In a poem she wrote in
1862, the same year as Echo was first published, Rossetti's contemporary
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem entitled A Musical instrument
(for more information on Elizabeth Barrett Browning see Literary Context
> Victorian women's
poetry).
In this, she describes how the classical god Pan created an instrument for
himself. After tearing out a reed, he ‘hacked and hewed' it into shape. Like
the instrument that he creates, the lyre is often seen to originate in violence
and suffering. Linked to this is the suffering or struggle that frequently
prompts a writer to compose a lyric poem to express their feelings.
Musical settings
Often,
lyric poems make allusion to their ancient roots by using musical techniques
such as repetition and a steady beat. Echo has received several musical
settings from the time of its publication. In a letter to her brother, Dante
Gabriel, Rossetti voiced her excitement at hearing it put to music.
The printed lyric-Along with the increase in book and
pamphlet production in the nineteenth-century, most Victorian lyrics were
encountered as material objects and for the first time, most recipients were
the silent readers of volumes of poetry
Language
and tone
An uncertain voice
By
asking that memory, hope and love would come back to the speaker ‘in tears'
(line 5), s/he expresses a wish that the past would return, however painful it
may be. It therefore seems strange that, in the very next couple of lines there
is disillusionment that, when a ‘sweet' dream was experienced, s/he didn't wake
up in Paradise but in a world that is now cold and
emotionless. In the final verse, the speaker articulates his/her uncertainty
once again when s/he expresses a longing that the lover would continue to
‘come' back ‘in dreams' (line 13). This longing to have the lover back produces
some complex emotions that cannot be dismissed, yet neither do they make any
sense.
Oxymoron
The
use of oxymoron is one technique the poem employs to
express uncertainty. For example:
- The speaker asks that
the lover would come in the ‘speaking silence' (line 2) of a dream
- The dream that is
experienced is described as ‘too bitter sweet' (line 7)
- In the final verse, life
and death are paired together as the speaker joins together his/her own
life with the ‘death' of the lover – yet s/he is perhaps also dead.
Echoes and repetition
Repetition
is a key feature of Echo. The structure reflects the movement involved
in the creation of echoes, as a sound is emitted and then bounced back. The
words that are echoed convey the wishes of the speaker, which s/he expresses
and then allows to come back to him/herself, attempting to re-create the
feeling s/he had when his/her lover was beside him/her.
However,
the repetition of the words in the first verse also conveys the impatience of
the speaker and reinforces the fact that the lover will always remain in
‘silence', never actually able to ‘come back'. The words bounce back to the
speaker since there is no longer anyone to hear them.
Internal repetition
Internal
repetition is the re-occurrence of words or sounds within a single line. This
is a technique used throughout Echo. For instance, the word ‘sweet' is
used three times on the seventh line to reinforce the intensity of the
speaker's feelings. Similarly, internal repetition is used in the final three
lines of the poem to emphasise the speaker's sense of giving life to her lover.
Anaphora is a poetic term for another form of
repetition. It is used to describe the emphasizing of words by their repetition
at the beginnings of neighbouring clauses. In Echo, the use of the word
‘Come' in the first verse is the most striking instance of this, conveying a
sense of suppressed passion with its repeated stress. In addition, the word
‘Where' is repeated in the second verse to convey the sense of loss and
bewilderment felt by the speaker.
Alliteration and sibilance
The
sibilance throughout the first verse conveys a
hushed and reflective tone. The natural flow of the speaker's words is helped
by the liquid W and L alliteration
in the second and third stanzas.
This is only broken by the plosive
P and B sounds of l.15-17 (‘back', ‘breath', ‘pulse', ‘speak') which convey
energy and urgency.
Assonance
The
visual and aural assonance
of the ‘ea' image and sound creates the effect of an echo throughout the poem.
Despite the fact that they do not all rhyme, the words: ‘speaking', ‘dream',
‘stream', ‘tears', ‘years', ‘death' and ‘breath' all share the same internal
combination of vowels. The significance of their repetition is more apparent to
the eye than to the ear. Nonetheless, by creating an allusion to the echo the
speaker creates when she searches for her lost love, their repetition conveys a
sense of sadness and melancholy. This is further emphasised by the frequent
long O assonance in the last couple of lines in each stanza.
Structure
and versification
Rhyme
The
regular ababcc rhyme
scheme, used in each verse, reflects the movement of the speaker's feeling. The
fact that none of the rhymes is carried over from one verse to the next
contributes to this idea of movement and change.
By
using rhyme to combine some words of opposite meanings, such as ‘night' and
‘bright' and ‘death' and ‘breath', Rossetti draws attention to the instability
of the boundary between life and death upon which her speaker is focused.
Metre
The
variations in metre throughout Echo reflect the
emotional changes that the speaker experiences as she contemplates the loss of
her lover. The opening trochees
in the first three lines with the phrases ‘Come to', ‘Come in' and ‘Come with',
convey the passion and urgency of the poetic voice.
In
the final verse, the strong beat in the line ‘Pulse for pulse, breath for
breath' (line 16) reflects the breathing that the speaker wishes s/he could
hear from the lover. By having the stress fall on the repeated consonants ‘p'
and ‘b', Rossetti imitates the sharpness of an intake of breath and thus
highlights the sense of urgency that the speaker feels. The emphasis on ‘pulse'
and ‘breath' also recalls the living, not the dead.
Visual impact
The
combination of long and short line lengths creates a visual wave-like effect on
the page. This corresponds to the actions being described throughout the poem.
For instance, in the second verse, the ‘slow door' is spoken of on the short, dimeter
penultimate line before its opening is described in the next, tetrameter
line. That the description of the opening of the door is accompanied by a
longer line conveys the act of expansion and width that the speaker wishes to
convey.
Imagery
and symbolism
Eyes:
- The speaker asks that
the lover comes back with ‘eyes as bright / As sunlight on a stream' (line
3). This image suggests both youthfulness and good, accurate vision. It
also works to merge the beloved with the natural environment and convey
ideas of reflection. As one's own reflection can be glimpsed in the light
of a sunlit stream, the speaker suggests that it is his/her wish to catch
a glimpse of his/her own image, as a kind of visual echo, in the eyes of
the beloved
- In the second verse, the
speaker imagines that, in Paradise,
souls watch those entering with ‘thirsting longing eyes' (line 10).
Describing eyes as ‘thirsting' expresses the imagined need they have to
catch a glimpse of a person they have missed.
The door:
- The speaker imagines
that ‘in Paradise', all eyes are fixed on the ‘slow door' opening and
letting in souls,
which hints at the potential reunion of lovers
- Several of Rossetti's devotional
poems, such as Despised and Rejected, use the image of the door to
depict the entrance to heaven.
However, in Revelation,
the image of heaven
that is given is one of security, rest and peace. There is no mention of
the longing of the souls that are inside for those they left behind to
enter ‘the slow door'. Rather, it is described as a place where pain and
tears are absent (Revelation 7: 17).
Water:
- The stream -
In addition to alluding to ideas of reflection, the description of the
brightness of the lover's eyes as ‘sunlight on a stream' suggests
tranquillity, peace and movement. Just as a stream glimmers in the sun and
runs towards a river or the sea, so too, does the speaker wish that
his/her eyes would gleam brightly and move towards her
- Tears - The speaker asks that
his/her lover would come back to his/her ‘in tears'. As well as expressing
sorrow, tears can express deep, heart-felt emotion. The hope that the
lover would come in tears suggests anticipation that s/he would
demonstrate his passion and love by reciprocating and sharing in the
speaker's sorrow
- Brimful -
The speaker describes the souls in paradise as being ‘brimful of love'.
The word brimful is usually associating with an overflow of water. By
describing souls
as overflowing with love, Rossetti may be drawing on the words that Jesus
spoke to a Samaritan
woman as she drew water from a well, declaring that he himself is the Water
of Life. He told her that, whereas everyone who drinks regular water will
inevitably be thirsty again:
‘Those
who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give
them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life'. John 4:14
TNIV
- Thirsting
- The description of souls who are ‘brimful of love' as they meet their
loved ones stands in direct contrast to the description of those who, with
‘thirsting longing eyes', await a reunion with their beloved. Rather than
resting in security, those who have thirsting eyes are portrayed as
restless, their eyes constantly watching for the opening of the door.
Whereas physical thirst makes a person long desperately for some
refreshment, Echo suggests that emotional deprivation can be equally
powerful and painful.
Investigating imagery and
symbolism
- Consider the contrast
between those who are ‘brimful of love' and those who are
‘thirsting'. What makes the difference between the two states?
Themes
Longing
The
tone
is one of longing throughout. From the first repetition of the word ‘come' to
the final expression of desire that the speaker can breathe life back into the
beloved, the speaker's attention is focused solely on his/her love. Longing is
expressed through the repeated call to the beloved and language associated with
desire. Despite displacing this feeling onto souls in paradise,
it seems that it is with the fulfilment of the speaker's own ‘thirsting longing
eyes' that is of greatest concern.
Echoes
The
title of the poem provides a key to understanding its repetitions and some of
its ambiguities. Rather than another voice echoing back the love that is
expressed, the speaker finds that it is only the echoes of his/her own voice
that can be detected and reminders of the past, now ‘finished years' (line 6).
The dim echoes of the lover have been lost. This reflects in part the classical
myth about Echo.
In
addition to repeating words and exploring the concept of a ‘speaking silence'
(line 2), it is helpful to look at this poem in comparison with Rossetti's
other writings, noting the echoes that exist between them.
“In
An Artist’s Studio,” Christina Rossetti, (1830-94)
One face looks
out from all his canvases,
One self-same
sits or walks or leans:
We found her
hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror
gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in
opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless
girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an
angel – every canvas means
The same one
meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon
her face by day and night,
And she with
true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the
moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with
waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is,
but as she fills his dream.
Christina
Rossetti was a Victorian poet and the sister of the famous artist Dante
Gabriel
Rossetti, part of the Raphaelite Brotherhood. She did not publish any of
her poetry
until she was 31, and much of her poetry, including her most famous
work Goblin
Market, explored women’s lives and issues. In her
personal life, she
did years of
volunteer work at a home for “fallen women” or prostitutes. Feminist
critics in
particular have an interest in Rossetti’s work as she was writing during a
period when
women were often suppressed by patriarchal values and traditions.
After reading
and contemplating “In an Artist’s Studio” in some detail, you may
have realised
that Rossetti’s poetry can be considered quite subversive in terms
of the way
gender is portrayed. The poem is about an artist and his female
model, and the
poetic voice informs us at the start that this model serves as the
inspiration
for all of the artist’s paintings: “One face looks out from all his
canvases.”
The unnamed
female model appears in all of the artist’s pictures and the different
ways in which
she poses is described, “One self-same sits or walks or leans.”
Rossetti’s
poem subversively hints at the threat posed to female consciousness
by
male-produced art. At the centre of the Raphaelite School in London and led
by her
brother, Christina was uniquely placed to witness the effects of the male
artist at
work. In the next few lines of the poem, the reader can discern a change
in poetic tone
as “We found her hidden just behind those screens / That mirror
gave back all
her loveliness.” The implication is that the model’s real identity and
sense of self
has been lost as she is constantly translated into a work of art. Her
true self has
become “hidden” and the “mirror” of the artist’s paintings has
masked the
fact that she is now aging. Through the paintings in which she
appears, she
has been given “back all her loveliness” by the artist who has
painted her as
she once was.
As such, “In
an Artist’s Studio” is a damning critique of the male artist as
consumer-parasite,
who exploits the beautiful face of his model who appears in
all of his
paintings. Note that in Rossetti’s poem, the female model stands silent.
Seemingly
denied any powers of articulation, the model does not realise how her
image has been
used by the artist, as she continues to gaze at him with “true
kind eyes”.
The model appears in countless different pictures, “A queen in opal
or in ruby
dress / A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, / A saint, an angel”
and the poetic
voice is quick to note that “every canvas means/The same one
meaning.” The
artist’s studio of the title has been filled with canvasses all
depicting the
same face of one model, and it is here that the poem moves
towards a
denunciation of such artistic practice.
“He feeds upon
her face by day and night, / And she with true kind eyes looks
back on him”
forms the critical centre of the poem. The artist is portrayed as a
voyeuristic
and parasitical figure who “feeds upon” (note Rossetti’s powerful
diction) the
beauty of his model. The poetic voice is emphatic in his/her
denunciation
of this practice, simultaneously stating the superficial reality of the
artist-model
relationship as not one based on truth or knowledge but the model’s
capacity to
“fill[s] the dream” of the artist. The final line of the poem offers
another
criticism, “Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.” In other words, the
female model
has been denied all sense of self in the artist’s work; she is there
solely to be
interpreted by him “as she fills his dream.”
Also, be aware
that Rossetti writes the whole poem as a sonnet, and this also
forms part of
her critique. The sonnet as a poetic form dates back from the
Renaissance
and is often perceived as part of a masculine tradition of poetry.
Shakespeare,
Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Thomas Wyatt and John Milton all wrote
important and
influential sonnets and sonnet sequences, and this helped cement
the sonnet’s
reputation as a masculine endeavour. In “In an Artist’s Studio”
Rossetti
cleverly usurps the previously male space of the sonnet and assimilates
it in her new
feminist re-assessment of art and artistic practices.
By enclosing
her critique of the male artist in the sonnet form, she reinforces her
argument and
reclaims the sonnet as a feminine space. This partly explains why
feminist
critics during the 1970s onwards, rediscovered Rossetti’s poetry and
insisted on
her entry to the Victorian canon of literary works. Often overshadowed
by her famous
sibling, Christina’s poetry often went unnoticed and she
is probably
more widely read now than she was during her own lifetime.
In conclusion,
“In an Artist’s Studio” is a clever and subversive piece of poetry,
with criticism
of the male artist (all the more controversial when you consider
Christina came
from a family of artists and poets) and a strong feminist
undertone.
Disguised in sonnet form, the title of the piece gives no hint as to
what the poem
might really be about, and herein lies its power and impact as a
piece of poetry.