Poem Analysis for Christina Rossetti’s Confluents
Themes:
Nature, sex/love, yearning, desperation, questioning fulfilment, religion/ religious
doubt.
Summary:
‘Confluence’ essentially means the joining of two rivers, which on the one hand
suggests an inevitability of death and the hope of a union with God, yet alternatively
this may reflect the joining of two people. There are two ways of reading the poem:
1) focuses on the inevitable circle of life and her desire to be with God (though he is
never mentioned) or 2) explores sexual unfulfillment as the persona questions if she
will find her lover / reach a state of sexual fulfilment.
Structure:
STRUCTURE: four equal stanzas, in which they are all 1 sentence. Thus, each
stanza is allowed to flow through the lack of punctuation, demonstrating sexual
liberation, yet the repetition of the structure reflects a somewhat inevitability
(constant circle of life and death).
RHYME/ RHYTHM:
First four lines of each stanza follow ABAB- meaning there is no rhyming couplet,
possibly reflecting a lack of unity either with God or a lover.
The latter four lines end with alternatively the same word: Thee/ utterly/thee/utterly.
Through the repetition, this links in with the idea of inevitability.
There is a Spondee (two stressed) on the first line- to represent the strength of
Rossetti's soul seeking/sexual longing. The first line ends on a masculine rhyme,
disrupting the iambic foot of stressed, unstressed- demonstrating a sense of
incompletion.
More A* analysis on page 2!
Imagery:
Themes:
Nature, sex/love, yearning, desperation, questioning fulfilment, religion/ religious
doubt.
Summary:
‘Confluence’ essentially means the joining of two rivers, which on the one hand
suggests an inevitability of death and the hope of a union with God, yet alternatively
this may reflect the joining of two people. There are two ways of reading the poem:
1) focuses on the inevitable circle of life and her desire to be with God (though he is
never mentioned) or 2) explores sexual unfulfillment as the persona questions if she
will find her lover / reach a state of sexual fulfilment.
Structure:
STRUCTURE: four equal stanzas, in which they are all 1 sentence. Thus, each
stanza is allowed to flow through the lack of punctuation, demonstrating sexual
liberation, yet the repetition of the structure reflects a somewhat inevitability
(constant circle of life and death).
RHYME/ RHYTHM:
First four lines of each stanza follow ABAB- meaning there is no rhyming couplet,
possibly reflecting a lack of unity either with God or a lover.
The latter four lines end with alternatively the same word: Thee/ utterly/thee/utterly.
Through the repetition, this links in with the idea of inevitability.
There is a Spondee (two stressed) on the first line- to represent the strength of
Rossetti's soul seeking/sexual longing. The first line ends on a masculine rhyme,
disrupting the iambic foot of stressed, unstressed- demonstrating a sense of
incompletion.
More A* analysis on page 2!
Imagery:
