SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
A first person speaker in dramatic monologue form narrates his thoughts in connection to a young prostitute named Jenny who lies in his lap. The meter is primarily tetrameter, giving the monologue a quick and springy feel. Rhymed couplets also contribute to the poem's clip. The poem begins carelessly, "Lazy laughing languid Jenny / Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea" and breaks into a more reflective mode on what Jenny's thoughts might be. A controlling metaphor in the poem likens Jenny to a book: the speaker muses on how the books in his room have thieved his youth's hours, while Jenny is a much more interesting book: "You know not what a book you seem, / Half read by lightning in a dream!" Later, he imagines her "as a volume seldom read / Being opened halfway shuts again, / So might the pages of her brain / Be parted at such words, and thence / Close back upon the dusty sense." The passage that follows imagines Jenny's "desecrated mind," full of unpleasant, sewage-like images. More positive associations sometime spring into the narrator's mind, as when he draws connections between Jenny's womanhood and his cousin Nell's; both have a certain pride in their beauty. "Of the same lump (as it is said) / For honour and dishonour made," he muses. At the end of the poem, the speaker turns back to reflect on himself, admitting that he has contributed to the downfall of those like Jenny in his own objectification and sexualization of her: "And must I mock you to the last, / Ashamed of my own shame,--aghast / Because some thoughts not born amiss / Rose at a poor fair face like this?" Since there has been no sexual contact, the speaker imagines himself as "striv[ing] to clear" "a dark path" by delivering to her only a kiss.
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
When "Jenny" came out in his 1850 collection (the manuscript having been exhumed from his wife Elizabeth Siddal's grave!), it caused quite a sensation and backlash. According to critics, Rossetti's poem was of the "fleshly school of poetry," and much stigma came to be attached to Rossetti's name as a result. Rossetti's "Jenny" was indeed a very different portrayal of a prostitute: nineteenth-century portrayals tended to emphasize the sad condition of working class prostitutes; the literature abounded in "humanitarian" poems which framed prostitutes as victims. Although critics of "Jenny" stress the poem's fleshliness and condemn the speaker's dirty thoughts, Rossetti's ending shows that the speaker is greatly aware of his participation too in the sexualization and objectification of women and the poem concludes with underscoring this problem.
"The Blessed Damozel"
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
"The Blessed Damozel" contains three separate voices: the voice of a narrator, the blessed damozel in heaven, and her lover on earth. The form is made up of six-line stanzas which rhyme abcbdb. The meter alternates mostly between tetrameter and trimeter, again giving the poem a rather quick rhythm. The narrator describes the blessed damozel leading against "the terrace of God's house" in erotic terms, emphasizing, for instance, "her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem." The blessed damozel's speech tells of how she wishes that her lover would come to her, that they might pray together and join in conjugal bliss. In heaven, lady Mary and her handmaidens sing and sew together, and the damozel imagines bringing her earthly lover into this sisterly circle. She imagines "the dear Mother will approve / My pride, and let me speak. / Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, / To Him round whom all souls / Kneel." Unfortunately for her, the lover's words reveal that he thinks of her very much in earthly, sexual terms. The final stanza tells of their alienation, the lover's words in parentheticals, and the narrator telling the situation: (I saw her smile.) / But soon their flight / Was vague mid the poised spheres. / And then she cast her arms along / The golden barriers, / And laid her face between her hands, / And wept. (I heard her tears."
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
This poem seems to reject the somewhat popular Swedenborgian notion of spiritual, conjugal bliss in Heaven. Heaven instead seems a chaste, virginal, sisterly place which has no place for heterosexual love. This incompatibility and mismatch between earthly, sexual love and the spiritual realm seems to be the primary theme of this poem. BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
"Sister Helen"
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE:
The poem is organized by stanzas containing a question posed by the brother and followed up by an answer by Sister Helen, and closing with a parenthetical lament for the victims of Sister Helen addressed to “O Mother, Mary Mother”). The poem opens with the brother’s question, “Why did you melt your waxen man / Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began.” This refers to an old belief that melting the waxen image of an enemy would perpetuate his demise in real life. Eventually, Sister Helen goes to lie down, and her brother goes up to the balcony to play. From the balcony, he watches the approach of Sister Helen’s enemies and relays information to her. “Three horsemen that ride terribly” approach, the first approach being of Keith of Eastholm. Keith of Eastholm pleads with Sister Helen to spare Keith of Ewern, who is “like to die.” Sister Helen’s flippant response is: “And he and thou, and thou and I, / Little brother.” Next in line is Keith of Westholm, which makes the same request, which she again denies. Keith of Keith, Keith of Ewern’s father then approaches, begging that she “save his dear son’s soul alive” but her reply is “Fire cannot slay it, it shall thrive, / Little brother!” suggesting that Keith of Ewern will burn in Hell. The final appeal is from Lady Ewern, whom Helen of course also rejects. At the end, the wax figure has melted, and the “flames are winning up apace!” The closing stanza describes a “white thing at the door,” presumably Keith’s soul, one “that’s lost as mine is lost,” Sister Helen remarks.
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH:
This haunting poem again thematizes the strength and tyranny of female power. Though it seems throughout that Helen’s little brother begins to sympathize with the enemies, unable to listen to their cries and pleas without feeling something of their pain, Sister Helen remains firm in her vengeance. The only other appeal, too, is to Mother Mary, another powerful female figure. Sister Helen’s power is absolute and perhaps potentially the most scary when she rejects a “sister,” Lady Ewern. Nothing but her own ends matter, and no one, neither her brother nor a fellow woman can convince her otherwise.
"Dante at Verona"
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE:
The entire poem is in aab rhymed lines, and mostly tetrameter (as seems to be Rossetti’s most common meter). The poem tells of Dante’s exile in Verona (Florence having banned him) and his presence at the court of the Can Grande della Scala. Despite the riches offered at the court, Dante remains stalwart in his commitment to Beatrice and higher art. The poet imagines that it is at Verona in this climate that Dante writes his most spiritually inspiring works, The Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova. Neither fame nor women, either, are temptations for the pious Dante: “But Dante recked not of the wine; / Whether the women stayed or went, / His visage held one stern intent.” Neither does he return to Florence when he is offered a safe return if he pays a fine—for Dante there is a higher power that will not allow him to traffic in such ways.
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH:
This account of Dante’s exile (both literally, in Verona, and figuratively in the sense that he does not enjoy the courtly pleasures which everyone else enjoys) clearly glorifies his stalwart faith and commitment to art. Rossetti’s own identification with Dante and particularly his status as an exiled artist no doubt play in here—as a result of contemporary criticism of his poems as being of the “fleshly school,” Rossetti did not receive much recognition for his poetry during his lifetime.
"My Sister's Sleep"
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
The poem is in tetrameter and envelope rhyme (like Tennyon's In Memoriam which came out a few years later) and describes the occasion of the poet's sister dying in another room and his mother's denial because it was Christmas Eve. The poem begins, "She fell asleep on Christmas Eve: / At length the long-ungranted shade / Of weary eyelids overweigh'd / The pain nought else might yet relieve. These initial lines, though ambiguous, with "shade" and "the pain nought else might yet relieve" hint that the sister is already dead. Yet throughout the poem, the poet watches his religious, pious, and hopeful mother, who works at her needles through the night until a sound from an upstairs apartment causes her to go to the sister (Margaret)'s room, thereby realizing that she has died. The poet says to her, "God knows I knew that she was dead" and the mother yet insists that they say, as the clock strikes 12, "Christ's blessing on the newly born!"
The poem is in tetrameter and envelope rhyme (like Tennyon's In Memoriam which came out a few years later) and describes the occasion of the poet's sister dying in another room and his mother's denial because it was Christmas Eve. The poem begins, "She fell asleep on Christmas Eve: / At length the long-ungranted shade / Of weary eyelids overweigh'd / The pain nought else might yet relieve. These initial lines, though ambiguous, with "shade" and "the pain nought else might yet relieve" hint that the sister is already dead. Yet throughout the poem, the poet watches his religious, pious, and hopeful mother, who works at her needles through the night until a sound from an upstairs apartment causes her to go to the sister (Margaret)'s room, thereby realizing that she has died. The poet says to her, "God knows I knew that she was dead" and the mother yet insists that they say, as the clock strikes 12, "Christ's blessing on the newly born!"
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
The poem critiques the mother's irrational religiosity--her insistence on Christmas as a day of birth and blessing prevents her from knowing the rational truth that her daughter has died. The poet aligns God with knowledge and rationality in the lines "God knows I knew that she was dead," preferring to believe in a God which would nor promote delusional religiosity. Thus, "My Sister's Sleep" becomes a deeply ironic description. "Troy Town"
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE:
Troy Town is written in quick tetrameter lines with repeated parenthetical interruptions :(O Troy Town!) and (O Troy’s down, / Tall Troy’s on fire!). Each time, fire is rhymed with “desire.” The poem tells of Helen offering a cups moulded after her own breasts to the goddess Venus. Venus directs Cupid to shoot the desire which these cups inspire as an arrow towards Paris, hence beginning the legendary Trojan war and the fall of Troy.
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH:
As in other of Rossetti’s poem, female (sexual) desire presents a problem because it seems difficult or even impossible to regulate. It is the sexual prowess of Helen and Venus that precipitate the fall of a great civilization. Rossetti seems to use the analogy of the Trojan War, emphasizing the role of female desire and sexuality, to work out some contemporary Victorian fears of rampant, unregulated female desire and sexuality as potentially having dire consequences for a great civilization. "Burden of Nineveh"
STRUCTURE/SUMMARY:
Again in tetrameter, “The Burden of Nineveh” rhymes four lines and then includes an unrhymed fifth. The poet visits the British museum, and as he prepares to go out into the London din again, he sees the Assyrian winged bull monument from Nineveh being hoisted in to the museum. This prompts the poet’s long reflection on the effects of historical ravages and imperial plunder on artifacts of old. He imagines too, in Keatsian fashion, from what time and context this monument came and how it may have functioned: "What vows, what rites, what prayers preferr'd, / What songs has the strange image heard?" Though the years intervening, Rossetti also wonders "In what blind vigil stood interr'd / For ages, till an English word / Broke silence first at Nineveh?" Unlike Keats, however, the poet moves later in the poem to reflect on the object's being trapped rather than autonomous from historical circumstance--it shall now be subject to the museum labels of London, and in the years to come, others may discover this ruin amongst the ruins of London. The poet imagines the future misreading the import of this monument: "This form, shall hold for us some race / That walked not in Christ's lowly ways, / But bowed its pride and vowed its praise / Unto the God of Nineveh."
BACKGROUND/CRITICAL APPROACH:
Rossetti's poem is a departure from romantic investment in the material art object as having an autonomous aesthetic being apart from its history; the monument from Nineveh is very much the object of historical time's ravages and future misinterpretations. This is a critique of museum culture and a disruption of the confidence in the museum's ability to preserve. In a longer view of time, Rossetti observes, "ruins" from civilizations centuries apart might exist together as if from contemporary civilizations. This leveling also links Nineveh, the evil city who comes to Christ through Jonah to London, though there doesn't seem to be any direct suggestion from Rossetti that London is to meet salvation through similar means--in fact, ironically, the poet fears this old symbol from Nineveh's un-Christian import will cause future generations to assume London to be un-Christian.
SUMMARY/STRUCTURE
"Eden Bower" re-tells the story of Lilith, supposedly the first wife of Adam who refused to be ruled by him. The poem is interrupted at regular intervals with the rhymed parentheticals "Sing Eden Bower!" and "Alas the hour!" Rossetti's version of the story tells how Lilith plots with the snake against God, Adam and Eve: Lilith says, "Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith! / (Alas the hour!) / And let God learn how I loved and hated / Man in the image of God created." She promises that if the snake helps her with this, she will be his faithful lover forever. Specifically, she asks to borrow the form of the snake, so that it is actually she who seduces Eve. The language is characteristically sensual, with Lilith beckoning the snake to "bring thou close thine head till it glisten / Along my breast, and lip me and listen." Lilith imagines that the moment of hers and the snake's consummation to be caught up with calling out the suffering of Adam and Eve.
"Eden Bower" re-tells the story of Lilith, supposedly the first wife of Adam who refused to be ruled by him. The poem is interrupted at regular intervals with the rhymed parentheticals "Sing Eden Bower!" and "Alas the hour!" Rossetti's version of the story tells how Lilith plots with the snake against God, Adam and Eve: Lilith says, "Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith! / (Alas the hour!) / And let God learn how I loved and hated / Man in the image of God created." She promises that if the snake helps her with this, she will be his faithful lover forever. Specifically, she asks to borrow the form of the snake, so that it is actually she who seduces Eve. The language is characteristically sensual, with Lilith beckoning the snake to "bring thou close thine head till it glisten / Along my breast, and lip me and listen." Lilith imagines that the moment of hers and the snake's consummation to be caught up with calling out the suffering of Adam and Eve.
BACKGROUNDS/CRITICAL APPROACH
"Eden Bower" depicts Lilith as a strikingly sensual woman, fiery in her resistance to God's will, and command over the snake. She is the force that impels the poem forward--with the exception of the brief narrator at the beginning introducing Lilith's speech to the snake, the rest of the poem is spoken by Lilith. Like Milton's Satan, we are made to feel her rather charismatic and certainly passionate force.
"Eden Bower" depicts Lilith as a strikingly sensual woman, fiery in her resistance to God's will, and command over the snake. She is the force that impels the poem forward--with the exception of the brief narrator at the beginning introducing Lilith's speech to the snake, the rest of the poem is spoken by Lilith. Like Milton's Satan, we are made to feel her rather charismatic and certainly passionate force.
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