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Summary Notes on 'Twice' by Christina Rossetti
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Notes on 'Twice' by Christina Rossetti, including summary and analysis.
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Christina RossettiTwice
Meaning:
As in many of Rossetti poems, ‘Twice’ is a poem which contrasts romantic love
with godly love. In this sense, the speaker begins by giving her heart away to a
man, who discards and breaks it. She then hands her broken heart over to god
who repairs it. Hence creating this notion of god’s love being superior to the love
of man, hence it is better to devote yourself to god and receive his eternal love.
Contextually speaking, this poem was written in 1864, published in Rossetti’s
second collection ‘The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems’ – but at the beginning
of the volume because of its focus on earthly, rather than heavenly, love. At this
point in her life, Rossetti had refused the proposals of both Charles Cayley and
James Collinson on grounds of her religious beliefs, in which she made the
ultimate decision to dedicate herself to god. Therefore it could be argued that
this poem is reflective of the internal conflict that Rossetti experiences between
earthly and heavenly love and the ultimate struggle to maintain religious
devotion.
Many of Rossetti’s poems focus around the figure of the ‘forsaken woman’,
women who experience distress and struggle to find a voice in which to
communicate it. Drawing on the Victorian Double standard, Rossetti highlights
the weaknesses of males and challenges the blame put on women for relational
difficulties. Certainly the poem presents a sympathetic image of the female
character and relates it to the discourtesy of the male figure, linking to her work
in the Mary Magdalene house for fallen women.
Structure and Form:
Paralleled structure and repetition is used is integral to this poem as it reflects a
growth and change in the speaker’s attitudes and emotions throughout the
poem. Such as in the first line the speaker has possession of her own heart ‘I
took my heart in my hand’ hence the personal pronoun ‘I’. However, when she
hands her heart over to her lover she states ‘You took my heart in your hand’
with the shift in pronouns ‘my’ and ‘your’ suggesting the control and possession
that the beloved has over the speaker’s heart, associating with a confinement
and lack of freedom. This makes a particular contrast to the beginning of the
fourth stanza in which she hands her heart over to god ‘I take my heart in my
hand’ is repeated once again, showing that despite giving her heart to god, she
still has ultimate self-control and freedom where she did not before.
The repetitions of the verb ‘hold’ throughout also implies god’s grasp on her
heart ‘In thy hold’ being more safe and secure as it creates connotations of safe
stowage in a ship. This makes particular contrast to the repetition of ‘broke’
which highlights the destructive effect of this romantic rejection on the speaker’s
heart, making particular contrast to the safety founded in god through his ‘hold’.
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