Rossetti - arguments

babylon the great

seductive female figure demonstrates moral volatility of human heart / susceptibility to evil, & therefore warns against vice

our mothers, lovely women pitiful

poem deals with the suffering of women,

asserting that their lives should be based around the generational transmission of female wisdom and sacrifice,

culminating in eschatological peace

as froth on the face of the deep

deals with fundamental insubstantiality of anything not rooted in God

a helpmeet for him

presents conflicted depiction of women

- promotes subservience and submission in action, but conceals

underlying valorisation of female strength & wisdom

piteous my rhyme is

ephemerality & pain associated with earthly love is transcended by

its true (inarticulable in poetry) divine nature as selfless, transformative

passing & glassing

a poem in which the male gaze is entirely absent:

a subversive exploration of contemporary victorian ideals of the devalorised ‘older woman’ figure,

situated in a dynamic temporal state (level 2 - eschatological)

a christmas carol

drawing on Anglo-Catholic privileging of incarnation,

Rossetti presents a Westernised and romantic retelling of the nativity.

outlines that true devotion is to be found in humility

memory

reflects ascetic ideal of personal sacrifice in light of eschatological consolation

through the renunciation of earthly love

twice

articulates profound transformation of speaker’s affections from earthly to transcendent,

foregrounding limitations of mutable, secular, romantic attachment &

elevating the redemptive potential of spiritual devotion

what would i give

muses over hypothetical sacrifice speaker would be willing to make

in order to satisfy yearning for rebirth & salvation,

& combat sentiments of detachment & immorality

up-hill

explores existential ordeal of life’s arduous progress, ultimately affirming

through dialogic exchange & christian allegory,

the eschatological promise of solace & spiritual consummation to all who persevere.

can be read as normative proclamation

at home

incorporeal, spectral self whose death denies their spatial emotional or temporal presence among the living.

represents liminality resulting from self-enforced asceticism in response to the sensory pursuits of the PRB

maude clare

subverts victorian marital convention

in dramatising collision of female agency & social expectation,

& giving voice to fallen women

a birthday

articulates transformative ecstasy of Parousia

may

elegises ephemerality of youth

in employing fleeting vitality of ‘may’ as a metaphor for the inevitable dissolution of this youth

under the inexorable progression of time

the world

personifies seductive facade of worldly beauty & pleasure as female figure,

masking spiritual corruption

dramatises soul’s volatility to evil & warns against damnation

an apple gathering

allegorises the social & emotional consequences of female sexual transgression,

exposing how Fallen Women are alienated from a society that privileges conformity

echo

explores transformative potential of grief / desire for reunion with the dead

to create liminal ‘dream’ space, permitting a temporal and spatial disruption transcending physical constraints

some ladies dress in muslin full and white

satirical critique of materialism, vanity & social pretension. 

renders individuals objects of ridicule & moral scrutiny.

shifts from comic to sardonic in its advocation for social cleansing