Echo

Themes/description of the poem

• Echo is an introspective poem through which the concept of an echo is a recurring motif, utilised by Rossetti as an exploration of the lingering effects of lost love. 

• Profound exploration of existential longing 

Structure

• ABABCC Rhyme scheme acting like a repeating echo. An echo as a remnant, something intangible that does not last forever. This structure reflects the movement involved in the creation of an echo, as a sound is emitted and then bounced back

• Poem is broadly written in iambic pentameter rhythm mimics a heartbeat, thus establishing a personal and intimate tone (however variations from this could reflect how the love is not complete, heart of her lover has stopped)

• Rossetti varies the meter and syllable count of each line, allowing the poem to establish a mournful and longing tone through long-stressed syllables/assonance (come to me in the silence of the night). These inconsistencies reflect the arc of feeling – passion, longing, sadness and desire – that the narrator is experiencing. 
  

• this conflict between Rossetti’s variation of form, yet simultaneous containment of the poem within three equal-length stanzas of six lines could act as a microcosm for the way that victorian mourning customs impose restraint and propriety over grief, especially for women. Subtle critique of gender expectations and control of emotion, despite the fact she wasn’t a feminist) Pre-Raphaelite

• Rigidity of Victorian mourning tradition, especially for women (prescribed lengths of mourning time, restrictions on clothing e.g. only black and a veil). Rossetti’s varied meter and syllable count therefore rejects poetic boundaries that are symbolic of socially acceptable limits enclosing the persona’s grief

Context

• The Pre-Raphaelite Movement, which emerged in the mid-19^th century, was a revolutionary artistic and literary movement that sought to challenge the conventions of the Victorian era. This movement sought challenge conventions of the Victorian era by capturing intensity of emotions and embracing the spiritual depth of their subjects - led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina’s brother. Christina Rossetti’s poetry reflects these Pre-Raphaelite sensibilities, and ‘Echo’ is a prime example of this, through its exploration of love, loss, and a longing for deeper connection 

• echo and narcissus mythology draws thematic parallels - an inability to communicate with a lover, and in the process a deterioration of identity or psyche - just as echo wastes away into a partial state of being (existing as only a voice), rossetti's speaker is reduced to existing in the liminal state of dreams between waking and sleeping

‘Come’

• Anaphora of ‘come’ at the beginning of lines acts almost like a recurring echo, exploring an incessant wave of urgent longing, and the persona’s attempts to summon memories of her past love again 

• Use of imperatives to show a command or plea, the persona has a deep desire or desperation for this lover to return 

• Microstructure of the poem includes this repetition of ‘come’ but also the internal repetition of words such as ‘sweet’ (which is repeated three times within the seventh line.) This structure reflects the movement involved in the creation of an echo, as sound is emitted and then bounced back [echo and narcissus]. It also functions to reinforce the intensity of the speaker’s feelings

‘Speaking silence’ 

• Sibilance of ‘speaking silence’ gives the first stanza a sense of euphony (musicality), exposing how the persona soothes her loss through this recurring dream. Rosetti’s use of sibilance and ‘s’ consonants here also has the effect of mimicking a whisper – a quiet and intimate message shared between two people 

• Yet simultaneously shatters this idealistic vision. ‘Speaking’ and ‘silence’ are oxymoronic, symbolising how this dream is impossible and intangible for the persona. The tragic unattainability of the persona and her lover being reunited in life is a dark undercurrent to the poem
  

‘How sweet, too sweet, too bittersweet’ 

• Despite the positive imagery associated with ‘sweet’, the tone is very sombre

• This is due to the cumulative effect of ‘sweet’, where repetition as an epistrophe means ‘sweet’ becomes increasingly more uncomfortable. The progressive qualifying of words ends on the oxymoron ‘bitter sweet’ to explore a contradiction within the speaker’s mind

• Acts as a microcosm for how repeatedly calling upon this dream draws the speaker further away from the moment in which that memory was created, each remembrance of this a degradation 

‘Should have been in Paradise’ ‘slow door’

• Allusion to a biblical heaven or afterlife. This links to how Christian piety was the norm of everyday life during the Victorian era 

• Modal verb ‘should’ suggests that she wishes to join her lover in this afterlife 

• Subversion of typically positive connotations of ‘paradise’ with the fact that these people that appear unfulfilled (‘thirsting’ ‘longing’). Unusual idea of portraying souls in Paradise as suffering or unsatisfied. use of the present tense suggests a continuation of these traits - unsatiated

• The slow time is the time it takes to let into paradise those that are still on Earth. Rossetti imagines the souls in paradise yearning for a reunion with the people they have left behind on Earth. Reflects a Victorian obsession with death and concerns about the afterlife

‘Thirsting longing eyes’  

• Verb ‘thirsting’ suggests a deep desire, but could also have sexual undertones. The use of the present tense here emphasises a continuation of this desire

• ‘Longing eyes’, unfulfilled, eyes as the window to the soul 

• Here, Rossetti explores a Romanticised writing style that focusses on deep emotion rather than physical description 

• present tense = continuation, unsatiated, emphasised by the dynamic verbs which suggest an active longing

‘Yet come to me in dreams’ 

• ‘yet’ acts as a volta in the poem 

• Disturbing and tragic thought, the speaker is convinced life has nothing more to offer her, and instead wishes to dream about these reflections of her late lover 

• Juxtaposition of longing and the impermanence of dreams adds depth to the poem, highlighting the bittersweet nature of love and the human experience. This acts as a literary example of binary opposition

‘Pulse for pulse, breath for breath’ ‘though cold in death’ 

• The matching and diacope of ‘pulse’ for ‘pulse’ and ‘breath’ for ‘breath’ seems to have an erotic overtone, where the consonance of words creates a phonological effect that seems breathless and intimate   

• Syntactic parallel combines their ‘pulse’ and ‘breath’ could represents union or emotional connection. This merging of one being spiritually, or the physical joining in sexual intercourse.
  Subverted by the contrast between the lover, who is ‘cold in death’, and these semantically powerful images of vitality ‘pulse’ and ‘breath’  

• Stress falls on the repeated consonants ‘p’ and ‘b’, imitating the sharpness of an intake of breath and thus highlighting the sense of urgency that the speaker feels. This emphasis on the words ‘pulse’ and ‘breath’ also recalls the living rather than the dead

• This becomes a dark Gothic rewriting of the kind of selfless love explored in Remember. The persona here is draining out her life, her pulse, her breath to reanimate her dead lover. The focus on vitality ‘pulse’ and ‘breath’ starkly contrasts the death of the partner. The speaker would trade her life for this, paying out in an economy of remembrance every waking moment 

• Alternative interpretation of breathing life into a lover in the way that God breathed life into Adam

‘Speak low, lean low’

• The elongation vowels, alliterative ‘l’ sound and diacope of ‘low’ imbue the line with a lingering sweetness, as if the speaker has achieves resolution in her imagination

• Conversely, the use of asyndeton and diacope builds the tension of the speaker, combined with the short syntax and repetition, becomes breathless and perhaps erotically charged 

‘Come to me in the silence of the night’ ‘come to me in dreams’ 

• Repetition of ‘come to me in dreams’ acts like a refrain to the opening line, almost like an echo or structural deja vu (anaphora of repeated ‘come to me’ seems decisive but almost aggressive in its yearning)  

• Persona is trapped within the cyclical echo of their partner’s memories, continuously returning to them  

• Clinging onto these dreams may be the only way to relive this youth and vitality associated with the lover ‘bright’ eyes’ ‘soft rounded cheeks’. Their love seemed vibrant and passionate, focussing on strong details about the individual noticed by the persona 

• Attention focussed solely on his/her lover

• ‘Night’ bears typical associated to enhanced feelings of sadness or sexual yearning

‘As long ago, my love, how long ago.’ 

• The effect of ending on ‘long ago’ emphasises the time and distance between them to explore the persona’s inability to let go of this memory of their partner - sad and poignant yearning

• The microstructural repetition of ‘long ago’ within the same line creates a cyclical structure - acting as an echo or a cycle to which the speaker will inevitably not escape from

• Just as her ‘love’ remains trapped syntactically, sandwiched between two separate ‘long ago’s’, so does Rossetti’s speaker remain trapped in an echo of the past, her life a prison whose walls are guarded by memories. 

‘Eyes as bright as sunlight on a stream’

• this simile is pure lyricism that suggests both hope and the theme of perception; the lovers reflecting each other in their sight

• It merges the beloved with the natural environment

• As one’s own reflection can be glimpsed in the light of a sunlit stream, the speaker suggests that it is their wish to catch a glimpse of their own image, as a kind of visual echo, in the eyes of their lover