Passing and Glassing

Context

• Vanitas art is often concerned with the transience of life, beauty and identity – one of the earliest art forms to explore the tenement of memento mori. Flowers were commonly used in vanitas at, and Rossetti could be subtly referencing this through her depiction of ‘roses’, ‘lavender’ and ‘violets’ 

• Pre-Raphaelite obsession with mirrors – they were fascinated by the convex mirror, which they believed stood as a metaphor for their own artistic practice, which tried to capture a deeper psychological truth beyond external appearances. By the mid 1840s people would have been familiar with daguerreotypes (light-sensitive photographs) which were called ‘mirrors with a memory’. This links to the Victorian fascination with preserving memory. 
  Convex mirrors became a staple of the middle-class interior from the 1860s onwards – Rossetti apparently had 25 mirrors, 9 of which were convex. This inspired generations of artists to question the limitations of vision and realism – exploring different dimensions and perspectives 

• Prevalence of mirror imagery throughout literature in the Victorian era, mirrors representing private and public spheres or perception, split mirrors or duality of man (e.g. Jekyll and Hyde) 

• Rossetti as a devout Anglo-Catholic could be using mirror imagery in her poem to emphasise spiritual self-examination as a form of moral introspection – echoing the Christian idea that the self must be examined and disciplined 

Structure

• Convex mirror slightly distorts, the rhyme scheme reflects this – opening couplets shift in the opening stanza 

• 3 octaves with slightly differing structures/language acts as reflections of each other 

• Varying lie lengths with no regular metrical pattern reflect the natural rhythm of time  

• Regular rhyme scheme AABBCCA is mainly monosyllabic: self-contained octaves (microstructure of the verse). This could reflect self-control and restraint expected of Victorian women 

‘Looking-glass’ vs ‘tiring glass’ vs ‘wisdom’s looking-glass' 

• Rossetti’s progression from ‘looking glass’ to ‘tiring-glass’ to ‘wisdom’s looking glass’ structures the poem around increasingly complex modes of self-reflection – moving from surface appearance to anxiety about ageing and finally to spiritual or moral insight. 

• The initial ‘looking-glass’ introduces the idea of literal self-reflection, foregrounding the cultural importance of female beauty in Victorian society. This term carries connotations of vanity and transience, suggesting that identity for women at this time is rooted in fragile external appearance. Rossetti suggests women should look beyond this looking glass to the world around  

• Parallel structure in second stanza reinforces this idea, but instead Rossetti introduces a slight variation of a ‘tiring glass’. A tiring-glass is a rarely used word as a reference for a full-length dressing mirror, drawing attention to the performative labour or femininity. Here the mirror is not intended to reflect the reality of a beautiful woman, but instead the efforts of a fading woman to cling to youth. The adjective ‘tiring’ bears semantic associations of exhaustion and attrition, suggesting that worries about resisting ageing is both futile and psychologically wearing  

• The final shift to ‘wisdom’s looking glass’ marks a conceptual departure from physical appearance altogether. Whilst ‘wisdom’ may signify old age and experience, due to Rossetti’s devout faith within a pious society, it more likely bears religious connotations of God’s omniscience. This spiritual mirror contrasts sharply with the earlier, temporal ones: whilst human beauty deteriorates with the linear passing of time God’s eternity and divine wisdom exists outside these temporal constraints 

‘Bloom must fade’ 

• Introduction of flower imagery recurs through the poem, representing youth, beauty and fertility. Flowers have seasons in which they are most beautiful, then they lose their vitality. This is an apt metaphor for feminine beauty 

• Modal verb ‘must’ indicate this inevitability of time passing and women losing their beauty. It is also a criticism of the attitude of the time – that in the minds of many men all that made a Victorian woman worth marrying was her beauty or wealth 

‘With withered roses and the fallen peach’ 

• Alliterative consonance 

• Roses symbolise love and passion, metaphor for lost love – effect of this becoming ‘withered’ suggests the erosion of desirability and emotional worth in women as they lose their beauty   

• Rossetti intensifies this by drawing on Christian symbolism: the Virgin Mary is often described as a rose without thorns, associated with connotations of purity and virginity. The rose withering therefore not only implies ageing but also the loss of idealised purity. Once this is lost, women are no longer valued  

• Link of ‘fallen’ peach is a subtle link to the fallen women. ‘Fallen’ carries direct biblical connotations of the Fall of Man in Gensis. Peaches may have erotic connotations, perhaps as a euphemism for sexuality – could be compared to the symbolism ascribed to fruit in her poem Goblin market. Dominant metaphor of fruit in Rosetti’s poems as reflecting temptation 

• Decaying flowers and fruit reflect the Pre-Raphaelite obsession with flowers as emblems of youth and beauty 

‘The faded lavender is sweet / sweet the dead violet’ 

• Lavender symbolises maturity (this could be physical or emotional) 

• Anadiplosis of ‘sweet’ structurally enacts the the passage of time. This repetition creates continuity rather than loss, reinforcing Rossetti’s assertion that value can persist beyond physical decay 

• The colours of the flowers in the poem grow progressively darker and less bright, from rose to lavender to violet – visually tracing the erosion of youth and vibrancy. Yet, both flowers are still described as ‘sweet’, a sensory quality unrelated to appearance, privileging essence over surface. External beauty is transient, but spiritual worth endures – fulfilment comes not from preserving appearances, but from devotion to God 

‘For there is nothing new beneath the sun’ 

• Ecclesiastes 1:9, implies cyclic nature of life and human experience 

• Link to the final lines of the poem ‘our doings have been done, and that which shall be was.’ switch between the three tenses to explore God has no temporal constraints, idea of predestination that events are foreordained by God