Poem Analysis for Christina Rossetti’s A Daughter of Eve
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.
Themes:
Sin
Unforgiveness
Regret
Isolation
Summary:
Rossetti’s ‘A Daughter of Eve’ explores a speaker who has sinned through her
promiscuity and thus has been marginalised by society and subsequently isolated.
There is no forgiveness in this poem, once the character has sinned- she becomes
an outcast. Through the title “A”, plural not “the”, Rossetti explores the sin all women
carry, derived from the temptation Eve fell into.
More A* Analysis on page 2!
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.
Themes:
Sin
Unforgiveness
Regret
Isolation
Summary:
Rossetti’s ‘A Daughter of Eve’ explores a speaker who has sinned through her
promiscuity and thus has been marginalised by society and subsequently isolated.
There is no forgiveness in this poem, once the character has sinned- she becomes
an outcast. Through the title “A”, plural not “the”, Rossetti explores the sin all women
carry, derived from the temptation Eve fell into.
More A* Analysis on page 2!
