Song by Christina Rossetti

Rhythm in the poem

The poem ‘Song’ by Christina Rossetti is about a woman who wants her loved ones to celebrate her life rather than mourning their loss of her at an inevitable life stage event. She shows her hope of being remembered when she finally realises that it will all be forgotten when the speaker say ‘And if thou wilt, forget.’ At this point, the speaker reaches a moment of despair.

In the poem, the line ‘I shall not see the shadows’ perfectly reflects the regular iambic trimeter. The impact of this is that it gives the poem a continuous rhythm which shows how the heavy feeling of grief is a consistent heart wrenching emotion. Every so often, Rossetti breaks from this regular iambic trimeter rhythm. 'I shall not hear the nightingale'. The bird nightingale represents spontaneity and freedom, because their songs are often regarded as spontaneous. The fact that Rossetti used this word in order to elongate the meter and mess up the rhythm, shows how the speaker believes that when she is dead she is free from the burdens of humanity as her soul is set free. In addition, her disrupting the rhythm shows how much she cares for her loved ones and how she wants to remind them that not only should they joyously celebrate her life, but that her love is eternal and she would do anything to proves this, even going as far as making the beats irregular in such a mysterious yet important form of expression.

How does Rossetti use character and other poetic techniques to comment on Victorian society in ‘Maude Clare’ and ‘No, Thank you, John’?

In the two poems ‘Maude Clare’ and ‘No, thank you, John’ its Rossetti addressing the conflict that many woman faced within the Victorian era. In ‘Maud Clare’ her conflict is status and power. Maude Clare’s lover, Lord Thomas, is forced to marry another woman because of her title as opposed to Maude Clare who is of a lower class. In ‘No, thank you, John’ the speaker faces a conflict of expectations; she’s expected to be married off at a young age and to be appreciative of any marriage proposal.

Firstly, in the two poems the speakers use the female voice to depict empowerment. In ‘No, thank, John’ the speaker who is the female voice tells John , who we presume proposed to her, that she's interested. She uses end stopped to depict empowerment when she says ‘Use your common sense.’ The use of this poetic technique makes the end of the stanza more powerful and the lack of sentiment towards John shows that she has control over him which shows her empowerment.

secondly‘Maude Clare’ the order of the characters speaking represents the amount of power and influence that each character has, this is important because the first character to speaker is the mother. The mother seems to be the one who encourages Lord Thomas and Nell’s marriage despite it being very clear to her that Lord Thomas is very unhappy with Nell. The mother represents the rules in society and the fact that Rossetti used a mother to portray society rather than a father illustrates that if women were to become empowered, just like the mother was empowered by money and status, then woman can become equal to men.

In addition, the poem ‘Maude Clare’ Rossetti uses Narration to make a comment on societies careless effect on individual lives. ‘His bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like a queen.’ The comparisons made through similes helps the reader to visual the attributes of the two different women. The imagery created shows the reader that Maude Clare should be the most desirable choice for Lord Thomas however because of her lack of wealth and title she's inferior to Nell.

 In the poem 'No, thank you, John' Rossetti's lack of narration makes the poem seem more personal and private, displaying female empowerment. The poem isn't telling a story but is a singular person expressing their frustrations. Rossetti uses this to comment on how society dislikes outspoken women as society persistently force the idea on young women that men are superior and because for that, we should therefore be filled with gratitude when a man shows any interest, showing how flawed society was.

Furthermore, in the poem ''No, thank you, John' the speaker uses the words 'I have no heart?-perhaps I have not;' the use of the question and end stopped questions makes it seem as thought the speaker is mocking the juvenile reaction of John who so clearly lashed out at the idea of being rejected and so mentioned how the speaker has no heart. The speaker genuinely rejects a loveless marriage as an authentic choice for men and women and John struggles with this. Much like 'No, Thank you, John', in the poem 'Maude Clare' Although Lord Thomas rejects the loveless marriage as an authentic choice for a man, it seems that his objections seem futile because in upper and middle class families it was very rare for men and women to have the choice to reject marriages especially because marriage was a form of gaining more wealth power and to produce an heir rather than being a symbol of love and affection.

Ultimately, poems revolve around the idea of power and superiority. Firstly, both poems position the male voice in an inferior position. In 'No thank you John' the female speaker rejects the John and doesn't allow for him to comment further, this not only puts John in an inferior position, Rossetti uses the speaker to show the superiority women hold despite society claiming the complete opposite. Secondly, in 'Maude Clare', the only male character doesn't get a chance to speak and all the decisions are made for him. Lord Thomas is used by Rossetti to represent the young men in society. Nell and Maude Clare represent the women from both sides of the social class spectrum and the mother represents the rules in society. Despite Maude Clare not having a lot of power, she is still superior to Lord Thomas and is able to comment in the poem.

                         Christina Rossetti context

Rossetti’s childhood was exceptionally happy, characterized by affectionate parental care and the creative companionship of older siblings.

Rossetti was the youngest child (out of the four children) from an extraordinarily gifted family. Christina was given to tantrums and fractious behaviour, and she fought hard to subdue this passionate             temper; which she succeeded in and used poetry to express herself.

The goal of a middle class woman was to be married off to someone wealthy & they taught and sponsored the lower class women

The marriage contract resembled the contract for a master and slave; which would explain the persona in ‘no thank you John’ not being overly enthusiastic with the idea of marrying John.

In 1850, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne,                                     she contributed seven poems to the Pre-Raphaelite                             journal The Germ.it wasn't lady like to be poetic.

Women’s votes were not allowed:                                                       Women were taught to be constraint and obedient.

 1849

With her struggling with mental health  it                                                                                                 resulted in subtle dark undertones in her poetry.                                                                                     1857  

Had a major religious crisis

1848

Rossetti modelled for the virgin Mary aged 16/17 years old.

Many critics confined her writings to his expectations of what is fitting for female verse. As ‘fancies' ‘melodious', ‘sweet' ‘quaint' and ‘a spontaneous feminine overflow'

'I come from'-identity

How does the speaker 'I come from' create a sense of his identity?

In the poem 'I come from' the poet creates a sense of identity by using a stream of conciousness as the re is no obvious rhythm or rhythm, which shows that the speaker is consciously thinking about his identity.When the poet uses the words 'a family of teachers and yet more teachers' he creates a sense of his identity for the speaker because he comes from a well educated family and who's expectations for him would have been high, however if he didn't pursued the career that many of his family had followed he may have been made to feel inadequate and possibly seen as a deviant within the family making him an outsider.

In addition the speaker goes from discussing his past as being in an upper-class family and then goes to describing his surroundings at a dangerous lower class urban area. this could suggests that the speakers identity is rooted between two opposite classes meaning he shows the contrast between the two, leaving him to be seen as as a drifter who perhaps doesn't fit in to any social class as he carries the experiences and struggles that both social classes face.

Furthermore, the speakers creates a sense of his identity when he says 'a man who followed me back from the library' the speaker only briefly mentions this incident  and move on completely.The fact that he doesn't go into detail about such a life threatening ordeal suggests that speaker chooses to avoid the issue because he is either traumatised and it is a too painful of a topic to liner on, however, him mentioning it at all could mean he has something to hide and felt that it was vital for him  to mention it because its contributes to the idea of what shaped his identity.

The speaker creates a sense of his identity when he says 'from the sound through the night of trains, trains, trains'. When the speaker repeats the word trains three times it could suggest that he is someone who is haunted by memories, which are triggered by the thoughts and sound of trains  going back and forth repetitively.