IBSEN AND ROSSETTI CHEAT SHEET
Rossetti
Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is like waters shoot. – themes of natural imagery and joy. The freshness
of life once love has arrived. Abundance and richness of nature shows us how joyful love
can be
Bent with the thickest fruit – perhaps too joyful and they are meant to fall?
My love is come to me (obvs about love)
The human impulse to create in order to memorialize love as nature is fleeting so she
switches to human made objects
Raise me a dais of silk and down
Could be reference to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his artistry, suggesting that nature is
fleeing but true art lay in human creation
Critics have interpreted that it is not religious as she does not try to hide her religious
poetry, leaning into Dante’s idea that everything has a point so pleasure becomes
poetry, and everything should be experienced as fully as possible. Both the splendor of
the natural and man-made world are so wonderful they should be experiences as poetry
Echo
Come to me in the silence of the night
The silence of a dream – pleading to see a loved one, night and dream suggests she
knows she cannot see them. The repetition of come sounds more like a plea every time
Love of finished years – the lover is older, or their relationship had a tragic ending
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet – speaker realizes they are not in
the dream, life is bittersweet
Souls brimful of love abide and meet
Thirsting longing eyes – speakers longing to see this person again, intense grief
In a Greek myth Echo was a nymph who helped Zeus commit adultery by distracting his
wife Hera, once she found out she made echo unable to speak except to repeat someone
else’s last words, echo fell in love with Narcissus but she could only echo him so he
rejected her and she pined away until only her voice remained
From the Antique
It’s a weary life it is
Doubly blank in a woman’s lot
I wish I wish I were a man
Or, better than being anything, were not
Rossetti begins with the perspective of the speaker “she” suggesting it is not her
, Weariness is often reflected in Victorian poetry, highlighting the emptiness of restricted
life. (Tennyson’s Mariana refrain I am aweary)
She may be referring to a particular class of women, she was very involved with helping
working class women.
“she” could represent all women
Rossetti believed women should be well treated but not equal politically
Biblical understanding that women come from, and are therefore subject to man
“I wish” highlights the futility of her desire
Were nothing at all in the world
Not a body and a soul
Not so much as a grain of dust
Echoing a funeral service
Still the world would wag on the same
Still the seasons would go and come
Wag seems dismissive, highlighting our individual insignificance
The world itself is meaningless, suggesting anger and bitterness
Cherries ripen and wild bee’s hum
All temporary but more permanent due to their repeated lifecycles compared to a human
None would miss me in all the world
Goblin Market
Rossetti said privately to her publisher it shouldn’t be marketed towards children
Curious Laura explores her sexuality with the goblin men who become more masculine
as the poem progresses
Jeannie the cautionary tale as the fruits killed her
Lizzie experiences the fruit but doesn’t enjoy it making her the ideal Victorian woman
Push their fruits against her mouth - Explores rape and masculine power
By the end there is no real difference between Lizzie and Laura as they both marry and
have children, a redemption for the fallen woman
Rossetti’s most negative portrayal of men, the goblin creatures exert complete power
over the girls
They tempt Laura, calling her in and then casting her aside, not caring that she is ruined
Take hair from Laura and money from Lizzie, an indication that men take everything from
women (perhaps a criticism of property laws)
Perhaps Goblin Market is a critique of the rising problem of consumerism in the Victorian
era. The Fruits are similar to the rise in trading, and the rise of cities completely shifted
the family dynamic, a cause for concern for many.
Rossetti
Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is like waters shoot. – themes of natural imagery and joy. The freshness
of life once love has arrived. Abundance and richness of nature shows us how joyful love
can be
Bent with the thickest fruit – perhaps too joyful and they are meant to fall?
My love is come to me (obvs about love)
The human impulse to create in order to memorialize love as nature is fleeting so she
switches to human made objects
Raise me a dais of silk and down
Could be reference to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his artistry, suggesting that nature is
fleeing but true art lay in human creation
Critics have interpreted that it is not religious as she does not try to hide her religious
poetry, leaning into Dante’s idea that everything has a point so pleasure becomes
poetry, and everything should be experienced as fully as possible. Both the splendor of
the natural and man-made world are so wonderful they should be experiences as poetry
Echo
Come to me in the silence of the night
The silence of a dream – pleading to see a loved one, night and dream suggests she
knows she cannot see them. The repetition of come sounds more like a plea every time
Love of finished years – the lover is older, or their relationship had a tragic ending
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet – speaker realizes they are not in
the dream, life is bittersweet
Souls brimful of love abide and meet
Thirsting longing eyes – speakers longing to see this person again, intense grief
In a Greek myth Echo was a nymph who helped Zeus commit adultery by distracting his
wife Hera, once she found out she made echo unable to speak except to repeat someone
else’s last words, echo fell in love with Narcissus but she could only echo him so he
rejected her and she pined away until only her voice remained
From the Antique
It’s a weary life it is
Doubly blank in a woman’s lot
I wish I wish I were a man
Or, better than being anything, were not
Rossetti begins with the perspective of the speaker “she” suggesting it is not her
, Weariness is often reflected in Victorian poetry, highlighting the emptiness of restricted
life. (Tennyson’s Mariana refrain I am aweary)
She may be referring to a particular class of women, she was very involved with helping
working class women.
“she” could represent all women
Rossetti believed women should be well treated but not equal politically
Biblical understanding that women come from, and are therefore subject to man
“I wish” highlights the futility of her desire
Were nothing at all in the world
Not a body and a soul
Not so much as a grain of dust
Echoing a funeral service
Still the world would wag on the same
Still the seasons would go and come
Wag seems dismissive, highlighting our individual insignificance
The world itself is meaningless, suggesting anger and bitterness
Cherries ripen and wild bee’s hum
All temporary but more permanent due to their repeated lifecycles compared to a human
None would miss me in all the world
Goblin Market
Rossetti said privately to her publisher it shouldn’t be marketed towards children
Curious Laura explores her sexuality with the goblin men who become more masculine
as the poem progresses
Jeannie the cautionary tale as the fruits killed her
Lizzie experiences the fruit but doesn’t enjoy it making her the ideal Victorian woman
Push their fruits against her mouth - Explores rape and masculine power
By the end there is no real difference between Lizzie and Laura as they both marry and
have children, a redemption for the fallen woman
Rossetti’s most negative portrayal of men, the goblin creatures exert complete power
over the girls
They tempt Laura, calling her in and then casting her aside, not caring that she is ruined
Take hair from Laura and money from Lizzie, an indication that men take everything from
women (perhaps a criticism of property laws)
Perhaps Goblin Market is a critique of the rising problem of consumerism in the Victorian
era. The Fruits are similar to the rise in trading, and the rise of cities completely shifted
the family dynamic, a cause for concern for many.
