General notes

Song (When I am dead, my dearest)

The poem 'Song' expresses the fact that Rossetti is indecisive on whether or not she wants to forget about her life, however she doesn't want anyone's sympathy or sadness being dwelled upon her grave. The line 'Be the green grass about me' symbolizes the fact that she wants people to move on from her death and carry on growing. The word 'be' has a positive emphasis on it and this shows that she wants people to be happy when she's dead and not upset. Although, the lines 'Haply I may remember, And haply I may forget.' suggest she isn't sure if she wants to remember her own life or not. The word 'forget.' is the end of the stanza and it symbolizes the fact that one day nothingness will rule over people and there will be nothing left, and Rossetti uses this in her poems to state that if nothingness will rule anyway, she believes there's nothing to life. Also, Rossetti uses a comma in the middle of the line and she has an equal amount of syllables on each side of the comma. This shows how she is nonchalant to whether she's alive or not as in her own mind she's already started dying.


In the poem 'From the Antique' Rossetti is reminiscent of the Victorian times and how Victorian women had no control and were controlled by men. She has done this when she states 'Doubly blank in a woman's lot:' as this shows her being assigned her 'woman's lot' to life. This is similar to the poem 'Remember', as Rossetti says 'You tell me of our future that you plann'd' This shows how the male dominated the woman as he had planned their life together without her consultant. There is an angry emphasis on the word 'you' as it comes across as Rossetti is using some force. This could be because she was angered at the fact women weren't able to control their own lives, and Victorian women were dominated by men.

Feminist critics have argued that Rossetti has created a world and deliberately excluded men from it. For these critics, the word ‘sisterhood’ has reconfirmed the potential that they had for women’s independence and productivity. However, Goblin Market has also been interpreted as reducing the concept of ‘sisterhood’ as a single and unhesitant level of meaning. Feminist critics, are disregarding that the sound/voice of the poem is the ‘hallmark’. Also, the term ‘sisterhood’ is not exclusive in Goblin Market and can imply several meanings, like how it can include the experiences of both genders.