From the antique

From the antique

'It's a weary life, it is, she said: /Doubly blank in a woman's lot: /I wish and I wish I were a man:/ Or, better then any being, were not:'
1. ‘It is a weary life’, establishing the theme of the poem, the undervaluing of women.
  1. To reinforce it, Rossetti adds another ‘It is’, and then ‘Doubly blank.’
2. So for many, life is joyless. ‘I wish and I wish’ gives yet further emphasis.
3. The last line is chilling. She is saying that not to exist at all is better even than being a man. Upvote
  1. plosive alliteration could add to this
Were nothing at all in all the world,/ Not a body and not a soul: /Not so much as a grain of dust /Or a drop of water from pole to pole.
1. The words, starting with ‘Were nothing’ seem to twist and turn, making little sense, other than to reinforce the negative perspective she has of life.
2. Natural imagery — water and dust — are opposites, suggesting that life for her is worthless, whatever the elements in which she lives. Dust, particularly, has connotations of death, as in the Anglican burial prayer, Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
3. The inclusion of “not a soul” suggests a religious element. Even if she were a soul destined for heaven, this has no appeal; the speaker simply wishes she did not exist.
4. childlike repetition of 'all' compared to the dark nature of the poem
5. anapestic repetition
  1. separated but brought together
6. linking body and soul
  1. religion
7. emjambement
  1. highlights insignificance of it
  2. becoming nothing
Still the world would wag on the same,/ Still the seasons go and come:/ Blossoms bloom as in days of old,/ Cherries ripen and wild bees hum.
1. The alliterative ‘world would wag’ could be humorous but not in this context. The world is indifferent to the suffering of women, wherever and whoever they are.
2. She is saying that nothing has changed for centuries; that the natural world would be regenerated, whether or not she existed.
3. There is a hint that she is aware of the beauty of the natural world — the emphatic, alliterative ‘blossoms bloom’ suggests this — but these don’t enrich her life. She is apart from any meaningful joy.
4. stereotypical nature
5. think it is nice but she is saying it isnt
6. tantilising us with the world
None would miss me in all the world,/ How much less would care or weep:/ I should be nothing, while all the rest/ Would wake and weary and fall asleep.
1. The multiple negatives continue. It is impossible for anyone to ‘care or weep’ less about someone who hasn’t existed; who is ‘nothing’.
2. 'in all the world' - repetition from stanza 2 - return to non-existance
3. Yet she feels she is speaking for ‘all the rest’, and by this we may assume she means other women. The last line is alliterative with its repeated ‘w’s, and tired-sounding repeated 'and’s, forming a syndetic list.
4. 'should' - idea that she feels that she deserves the outcome
desire for non-existance
Links:
1. Song: When I am dead my dearest - the use of nature compared to death and the separation of nature and the persona + the feeling of despair and loss
2. Remember: feeling of despair and loss + the acceptance of death
3. going against religious belifs

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	Created by Ella Connors almost 8 years ago