Christina Rossetti: Poem #2: 'From The Antique'

GENERAL CONTENT, RHYME, THEMES ETC.:

- Themes: alienation, oppression, Victorian women's exclusion from key systems of power, lack of female identity due to male oppression.
- Sense of women's entrapment - narrator seems to eradicate.
- Rossetti was a woman acutely aware of the social & political realities of her time.
- Rhyme = structured, ABCB
- Reflective, despondent, melancholic tone.
- Lots of natural imagery, again a common technique in Rossetti's poetry as a result of the Romantic poet's influence on her. This natural imagery in each stanza also lends a form of coherency to the poem.

STANZA 1 & TITLE:

- 1st stanza uses austere word choices, severe and strict mood. These show the uncompromising attitude of narrator's analysis of women's societal place.
- 1st line is one narrator and the rest of the poem is another (their dialogue) so it's 3rd person narrative stance but poem is 1st person dialogue. - Complex discourse structure.
- 'weary' - so weary is the position of women that annihilation is preferable, it would enable an escape from gender expectations and imposed identities (Links to loss of identity theme).
- Metrical change on the second line to emphasise the 'doubly blank' existence of women.
-'I wish and I wish I were a man...' far better it is to be a man in Victorian society, the repetition creates a sense of longing and despondency.
- Last line: 'were not' desire for extinction all together.

STANZA 2:

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STANZA 3:

- First line could somewhat stop the audience's sympathy as it has a despondent, self-obsessed, cynical and self-pitying tone. But then again we are all the epicenters of our own worlds anyway.
- 'still...still' again more repetition
- 'Blossoms bloom' alliteration.
- There is a sensitivity in this line: 'Blossoms bloom as in days of old, Cherries ripen and wild bees hum'. As it's again resorting to natural imagery in order to promote positive connotations. However it is a contradiction as it was said before there was no water and yet there are cherries ripening etc. This is obviously intentionally done, and is figurative.
- Can be interpreted as 'Don't worry too much' despite the seemingly depressing subject matter.