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READ THIS
The poet speaks about her secret. Perhaps she has a secret which nobody can see, perhaps she doesn't.
Either way, she is not going to tell.
Secrets are like articles of clothing, she says, or the door of a house. Clothing and doors serve a purpose:
to protect the person from the wind, rain and snow. So do secrets protect one. Perhaps she may
eventually allow a guess, although she may still not reveal the secret.
ABOUT THE POET
Christina Rossetti was born in London in 1830, one of four children of Italian parents. Her father was the
poet Gabriele Rossetti while her brother was Dante Gabriel Rossetti who is famous as one of the founders
of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists.
Christina was the youngest of the siblings and had a lively intellectual mind, dictating her first story to her
mother before she had even learned to write.
She was educated at home and studied religious works, classics, fairy tales and novels. She was
surrounded at a very early age by the work of the great scholars and artists and, with her father being both
a revolutionary and a poet (he was a political exile from Italy), she met many of the visiting Italian scholars,
artists and revolutionaries.
In the 1840s, her family faced a severe financial crisis because of her father's deteriorating physical and
mental health. In 1843, he was diagnosed with persistent bronchitis (possibly tuberculosis) and also faced
going blind. He gave up his teaching at King's College and, though he lived another 11 years, he suffered
from depression and was never physically well again.
Christina's mother began teaching in order to keep the family out of poverty. Her siblings were also forced
to leave home to find work, leaving the teenaged Christina to a life of increasing isolation.
She suffered from nervous stress at age 14, and then depression followed afterwards. It was during this
period that religious devotion came to play a major role in her life. She had three offers of marriage from
distinguished artists while she was in her late teens but turned them all down on religious grounds.
Christina sat as the model for several of her brother's most famous paintings, e.g. as the Virgin Mary in
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and again in his depiction of the Annunciation in Ecce Ancilla
Domini ("Behold, the handmaid of the Lord").
Her early poems were mostly imitations of her favourite poets but in her late teens she began
experimenting with verse forms, while drawing narratives from the Bible, from folk tales and from the lives
of the saints.
Her early pieces often featured meditations on death and loss. Her first two poems ("Death's Chill
Between" and "Heart's Chill Between"), were published when she was 18.
When she was about 20, she contributed seven poems to the Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ
under the pseudonym "Ellen Alleyne".
Her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, appeared in 1862 when she was 31.
It received widespread critical praise, establishing her as the main female poet of her time.
In the later part of her life, Christina suffered from Graves Disease which is a thyroid disorder. In 1893
she also developed breast cancer and, though the tumour was removed, she suffered a recurrence in
1894. She died in December that year. She was 64 years of age.
Christina Rossetti is increasingly being reconsidered a major Victorian poet, compared to the great
American poet Emily Dickinson.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all."
- What is meant by ASSONANCE? Give examples of its use in these three lines. (4)
[Need help?]
ASSONANCE is the use of RHYMING SOUND within a line. In these lines we have "bounding",
"surrounding" and "astounding", as well as "nipping" and "clipping".
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- Comment on the use of ASSONANCE. What is its purpose here? (4)
[Need help?]
ASSONANCE tends to create a light-hearted effect. It also affects the RHYTHM of the lines, creating a
lyrical effect. It is very difficult to be serious when a poet uses assonance in this way.
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- Explain what effect "bounding", "surrounding" and "astounding" would have on the person opening the
door in the context of these lines. (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is speaking in the context of opening the door to the cold wind outside. The wind would bound
in, she says, it would overwhelm her, surprise her.
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"I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?"
- What does the poet mean when she says that she "wears her mask for warmth". (4)
[Need help?]
We all wear masks. These are there in an attempt to get people to see us in a certain way or to hide the
inner person we don't want seen. Few of us would like people to see us as we really are.
In the poet's case, she is of course referring to secrets. The secrets too are masks. They serve to hide
the real us, to keep us "warm" and comfortable and free from the psychological breezes and winds which
might buffet us.
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- The poet has again used ASSONANCE. Identify it and explain its impact in these
lines. (4)
[Need help?]
The ASSONANCE may be seen in the words "shows", "nose" and "snows". Its purpose is the same as
before: to create a lighthearted, lyrical tone to the poem.
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- What image has the poet introduced when she says, "To be pecked at by every wind that
blows"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet has introduced the image of birds attempting to "peck off her nose", as in "Sing a song of
sixpence . . . four and twenty black birds pecked off his noise."
Once again the poet introduces a humourous note to the poem, possibly comparing the wind to nursery
rhyme characters.
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"You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still."
- What does the poet mean when she says, "You would not peck"? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet is saying that the person would not be so rude as to ask her what her secrets are.
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- What does she mean by "good will" but why must the truth be left "untested still"? (4)
[Need help?]
The good will means the good manners in not prying into someone's secrets, not asking to have the
secrets divulged. The secrets, says the poet, are the "truth" about the person, revealing the real person.
This "truth" must be left alone, must not be "tested" or revealed. The mask must be left in place.
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"Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud."
- Comment on the poet's reference to "some languid summer day". (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is referring to a mature time in life, like late summer when all the fruit is ripening in the warmth
and the birds are too drowsy even to sing. It's a laid-back time when perhaps one's mask may slip and
the real person may be revealed at last.
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"Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess."
- Will the poet's secret be revealed even then? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet says, "Perhaps". Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't. But, she says, it is possible that when all is
lazy and mature, the person may at least be allowed to hazard some guesses - although these guesses
may not be answered.
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