Christina Rossetti Essay Plans

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI ESSAY
PLANS
DEATH AND LOSS

OUR MOTHERS AND ECHO


MEANING
Both poems explore the existential question of the afterlife, creating a bittersweet tone
in response to death as both retain this idea of death being a form of paradise

 Echo- ambiguous portrayal of loss which could be considered either literal or
metaphorical loss of love to be retained in the afterlife
 Our mothers- a more expansive view of loss, the expectations a Christian
woman may have to reach heaven.


FORM/STRUCTURE
Structure in the case of both poems reflects a transcendence to heaven but also amplify
the emotions associated with loss

Echo:

Personal connection with a loved one

 Regular rhyme scheme- an easy transition (perhaps transience with a loved
one)
 Parallelisms in language- a lost connection between two people
 Use of sound- hushing ‘s’ sounds create literal echoes
 ‘Watch the slow door’- short line connotes a physical shutting of the door
between life and death.

Our mothers:

The legacy that Christian women leave as they die

 Collective pronoun ‘our’ establishes a broad message
 Petrarchan sonnet form- equal division into octave and sestet, establishes
problem and solution; women should remain stoic in life to enjoy paradise
 Structural weight- this could imply the weight on the speaker’s shoulders/ a
sense of pressure
 Ambiguity- ‘whether or not you bear to look on me’


LANGUAGE
Echo:

Bittersweet consideration of the afterlife with underlying connotations of regret

 Cherub-like imagery- ‘soft rounded cheeks’ in which ‘soft’ holds a certain
delicacy

,  Soft sounds- ‘speaking silence of a dream’ sounds as an intangible whisper

Our Mothers:

 Biblical imagery- ‘the lord will wipe our tears away’ salvation found in god
 Imperatives- ‘learn’ ‘work’ encourage passivity
 Juxtaposition- ‘confident in dule’ – the extremes to which a woman must go to
reach the afterlife


CONTEXT
 Loss of Charles Cayley- romantic
 Loss of her father- non romantic
 Rossetti’s non-feminist views
 ‘The lord will wipe our tears away’- a reference to Isaiah
 Victorian ideas of death and mourning

MEMORY AND MAY


MEANING
Both poems use ambiguity to imply loss of a loved one either metaphorically or literally

Memory- Rossetti presents a speakers feeling of loss through choice, however the loss
implies rejecting a ‘false’ idol such as earthly love in favor of heavenly redemption

May- Rossetti presents a speaker feeling of loss as something is removed from their life
or taken away from them


STRUCTURE/FORM
Memory:

Mixed presentation of loss- unlike many of Rossetti’s poems a decision to renounce
earthly love does not seem to come with ease for the speaker

 Structural division in time- ‘sea- change’ a sense of mourning in a sense other
than death
 Change in pace- First stanza with more pauses and longer clauses, appearing
sombre and slow-feeling. Second half shows increased pace, with more
frequented use of caesura, appearing joyous.
 Iambic pentameter- suggestion of natural speech, personal and truthful
 Trimester- in the final line of stanza 1 appears unnatural along with the used of
the end-stopped line, suggesting repressed emotion.
 Repetition of ‘alone’- ingrained sense of isolation

May:

 Truncated Sonnet- Octave and sestet with Volta like change suggesting a
transient shift, leaving ‘it’ behind in May.
 Fruitful imagery shifts to negative language- as May and ‘it’ are left behind
 Rhyme scheme deviates- couplets, triplets and half-rhyme scheme. Connotes
the negative effect of personal loss on the speaker.