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MASSOLIT LECTURE NOTES_ Up-hill
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Summary Notes on a Massolit Lecture given by Professor Tom Mole on Christina Rossetti's poem, 'Uphill'.
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Up-Hill Notes:- William Michael Rossetti said this was one of the first poems that drew attention towards
Rossetti as a poet.
- Four quatrains = 16 lines
- Regular rhyming scheme of ABAB, with all questions rhyming with another question, and
all the answers rhyming to another answer.
- All the questions are answered, and are all answered in an affirmative, reassuring manner.
- This is a poem of consolation.
- The up-hill journey is an allegory of the Christian Life. A journey towards God, heaven and
righteousness.
- It does not reassure us that it will be easy - it will be difficult.
- Christian life = struggle, difficulty and doubt answered by faith.
- Inn = Inn in the nativity story where Jesus was born.
- Poem uses a series of questions and answers to explore the idea that, after
life’s hardships, a place with God might be achieved.
- It works through one long metaphor of life as a journey towards the
‘resting-place’ (l. 5) or ‘inn’ (l. 8) of heaven, a version of that religious quest
motif.
- The halting metre and alternating short lines effectively emphasise the
struggle of the journey through the ‘day’ of mortal existence, even while the
answering voice affirms that at night (in death) security will be assured.
- The austere, deceptively simple language here – many of the words are
monosyllabic – typically masks the complexities of religious thought that
Rossetti’s poetry often explores. For the difficult journey of ‘Up-Hill’ is as much
a journey to religious understanding as anything else.
- Language indicates the exhausting force and effort with which Rossetti’s
speakers strive to achieve a meaningful relationship with God. The repeated
use of the question format here also emphasises the longing for this
relationship to be affirmed and the fear of ultimately being shut out from
salvation.
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