Christina Rossetti Poems

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  • Created by: Connie1.
  • Created on: 10-05-14 11:42
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  • Christina Rossetti
    • Goblin Market
      • Form
        • Written in iambic pentameter
          • This speeds up the poem creating more suspense
        • Irregular Rhyming pattern
      • Language
        • "Sweet to tongue, sound to eye"
          • Appeals to readers senses, showing temptation that the sisters face
            • However the threatening under tones continue and so we get a sense of danger from it
        • excess of fruit
          • Show to much of something bad
            • tempt women into sex
              • euphemism for sex
        • "Whispered like the restless brook"
          • Showing the uneasiness of the situation
            • adds tension to the scene
        • Sisters
          • "Golden head by golden head.. lock'd together in one nest
            • Showing unity of characters
        • Animalistic men
          • "Rat" "Snail" "Wombat" "Ratel"
            • shows the predatory nature of them
              • Saying that men are vermin and lowly
    • Cousin Kate
      • Language
        • "Changed me like a glove"
          • objectification women as commodities
        • "He saw you at your fathers gate"
          • could be showing that Kate stuck to Victorian social norms as she does not stray from home till marriage
        • "Lured"
          • Innocent in all this
            • However bias POV
      • Form
        • Dramatic monologue
        • First person retrospective
          • Bias which allows the reader to sympathies with narrator
        • Rhetorical questions
          • Showing her anger and bitterness
    • Jessie Cameron
      • Form
        • fast paced to mimic the desperation of male and frustration of female
        • Rhyming scheme of tradition ballad
          • emphasizes sadness and drama of the situation
      • Language
        • "Seas swept" "stretched" "sand" "stood"
          • Sibilance - showing anger and frustration
          • Recreating sounds of the sea
        • "Fire and flood"
          • Juxstapostion
            • Differences between her and her lover
        • "Moan and Foam"
          • Sounds of sorrow
        • "Which might be hand or hair"
          • Ambigious
            • Strong tumbling imagery, not sure what is what like uncertainty of death and whether or not in death they are together
              • or perhaps to show her indecision
    • Maude Clare
      • Language
        • "Blessed"
          • Alliteration of it suggests sarcastic tone, de-valuing the marriage bed
            • Out of bitterness not lack of religion
        • "Lillie's in the Beck"
          • referencing when she was pure
            • showing other woman she had him first
          • Lillies symbol of death as well as purity
        • "Fickle heart"
          • meant to be a gift instead she is just sharing her burden of heartache
            • However she could be trying to brush of the fact that he has chosen someone by saying that her affections have also changed
              • She may be warning the other girl that his heart will never be true as it is him who has the fickle heart
        • "Faded leaves"
          • Time has past relationship is over
      • Form
        • Unknown narrator
        • Contrast showing significance of social class
        • Predictability of rhyme
          • Shows that the relationship could never have lasted due to Maude's lack of social status
    • Convent Threshold
      • Language
        • "Silence spoke like thunder
          • The importance of a message does not compare to the volume in which it is spoken
            • She is becoming a nun to try and repent for her sins, they stay in silence for long lengths of time this is the way she is trying to send him a message
          • Trying to send him a message that words cannot convey
          • She is dead? perhaps this is the message he needed
        • "Flee"
          • Urging him to hind from Satan, or god?
            • Uses it three times trying to show the peril he is in
        • "Cadenced hymn"
          • When he repents the angels will sing for him and so he will be righteous again
      • Form
        • Assonance adds to the dramatic effect of the need to repent
        • Alliteration of R's showing discomfort of narrator
        • Irregular Rhyme scheme to draw attention to urgency
    • A Royal Princess
      • Language
        • "if I perish, perish; that's the goal I half conceive"
          • Wants to die?
            • Maryt - Will die for a cause greater than her own, creates sympathy for her
        • Self-same solitary figure, self-same seeking face'
          • Alliteration to show the monotony of her life
          • Shows her weariness
            • Sibilance could show her anger that her father isnt helping his own people but also that she is caged
        • "quell... base-born ruffians"
          • Showing that the King is not for the people, he is merciless to people who haven't done anything wrong
            • Class divide
      • Form
    • Sister Maude
      • Language
        • "Never have looked at you"
          • Sisters reason for getting him killed was because she was jealous that he loved the other sister
            • She believes that she is above her sister?
        • "Cold he lies, as cold as stone"
          • Her sisters betrayal led to his death
            • Perhaps he "lies cold" to her because he has now moved on to the other sister and so is no longer in her life and is dead to her
        • "Maude, my sister Maude"
          • Repetition of Maude helps highlight the narrators anger and bitterness at the situation
            • "My" adds to the sense of betrayal felt throughout the poem
            • Repetition could also be because she is disbelieving of the situation. In shock perhaps
      • Form
        • The change in mood in the poem is highlighted by extra two lines in fifth stanza
        • Sibalence is used perhaps to highlight that she is going to hell - satanic references (snake)
    • Round tower
      • Language
        • "Kiss"
          • Even though they are about to die the still have time for eachother
            • The repetion of the act is to show the longing for a life together that is now not possible
              • Pehaps trying to fight the inevitable
        • "Tower"
          • They are trapped with no escape
            • Perhaps showing that ever since they moved to the building they have been trapped due to the social divide and that they are isolated
        • "Swarming howling wretches"
          • Animalistic nature of the enemy below
            • Perhaps it is easier for them to think of them as animals rather than human beings due to the unholy acts they are about to commit
              • Could be that they percieve the enemy as lowly
      • Form
        • Repition though out whole of the poem
          • Showing helplessness of situation
            • Or it could be showing that they are surprised by the turn of events and repeating what it is happening is helping them to understand
    • Apple Gathering
      • Language
        • "I found no apples there"
          • No longer virtuous
          • By rhyming this with the second line of the same stanza it highlights the loss
            • No suitors? She gave up  her innocence too early
        • "A voice talked with her... more sweet to me than song"
          • Showing just how much she wishes for a baby
            • Perhaps it is the husbands voice that she hears, and the loss of her own beauty makes her feel self-pity
              • This other women is not alone, "with", were as the narrator is perhaps Rossetti was trying to saying that without the beauty of youth you cant be happy
                • Showing the superficial nature of the Patriarchal society
        • "While the dews fell fast I loitered still"
          • Crying?
            • Could be perhaps showing that she is going to die soon because she is no longer fertile
              • Or maybe that her time is running out to become one of the "neighbours"
        • "Of far less worth
          • Even though she has lost her innocence and her appeal to men of that time she still views herself as above the fertile women
            • She believes that her and Willies love should come before anything
              • Perhaps this is how Rossetti really feels about her engagement to James Collinson, she doesn't think that religion is a reason not to get married
      • Form
        • Rhyming, speeds up the poem to give it more of an effect upon the reader
          • Often highlights the narrators anger by  making the rhymed words stand out
  • Context
    • Rossetti always felt oppressed by her older sister
      • Reason for some of the negative female relationships
    • Very religious
      • Reason for the religious ideas in her poems
  • Apple Gathering
    • Language
      • "I found no apples there"
        • No longer virtuous
        • By rhyming this with the second line of the same stanza it highlights the loss
          • No suitors? She gave up  her innocence too early
      • "A voice talked with her... more sweet to me than song"
        • Showing just how much she wishes for a baby
          • Perhaps it is the husbands voice that she hears, and the loss of her own beauty makes her feel self-pity
            • This other women is not alone, "with", were as the narrator is perhaps Rossetti was trying to saying that without the beauty of youth you cant be happy
              • Showing the superficial nature of the Patriarchal society
      • "While the dews fell fast I loitered still"
        • Crying?
          • Could be perhaps showing that she is going to die soon because she is no longer fertile
            • Or maybe that her time is running out to become one of the "neighbours"
      • "Of far less worth
        • Even though she has lost her innocence and her appeal to men of that time she still views herself as above the fertile women
          • She believes that her and Willies love should come before anything
            • Perhaps this is how Rossetti really feels about her engagement to James Collinson, she doesn't think that religion is a reason not to get married
    • Form
      • Rhyming, speeds up the poem to give it more of an effect upon the reader
        • Often highlights the narrators anger by  making the rhymed words stand out
  • Rossetti is trying to show the idea couple in this poem even though they face death they still love one another. Perhaps after her broken engagement she felt the need to express her perfect relationship
  • Rossetti was against the American Civil War (it was happening whilst she was alive) due to slavery, perhaps this is the reason she wrote this poem
  • Irish Famine reports of people actually having to grass due to the lack of help from government

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