Summary Complete Revision Set - Quotes, Summaries, Context and Critics
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Course
Drama and poetry pre-1900 (H472)
Institution
OCR
Book
A Doll\'s House
A complete revision set I used for my final A-level exams to achieve 57/60
This document includes:
- summaries of each Rossetti poem and key quotes for each
- key and chronological quotes of Ibsen's A Doll's house
- context of reception
- context of production (in-depth w/ laws of time)
...
A Birthday
Rossetti and her infatuation with religion
Positive poem and mainly shows her perception of religion (emphasising neglect of romantic love)
- “my love is come to me”
o “is” present tense verb
Admiration for heaven, lives a simple and humble life but looks for reward of materialism with God
- “work it in gold and silver grapes” – (COMPARE WITH NORA)
- “birthday of my life” – Rossetti as new woman
Echo
Poem comparing with doors, echo – no source – intentionally ambiguous
Loss and morning, Rossetti yearning for God, Nihilism
- “Watch the slow door” – torturing escape that is closing in
- “pulse for pulse, breath to breath” – Nora’s contemplation of suicide
- “cold in death” – Nora’s fear of outside and her suicide
From the antique
Most nihilistic poem, representative of a bitter life cycle and getting olde, abandonment of people and God
- “I wish and I wish I were a man” – gender roles
- “Not a body and not a soul” – Mrs Linde
- “None would miss in all the world – ‘Remember’ and Nora Act 2 – kids missing her
- “it is a weary life”
Good Friday
Religious poem, hyperbolic in nature
- “exceeding grief” – women’s rage, Young Vic performance
- “not so the Sun and Moon which hid their faces” – uncertain end of Nora, Norwegian audiences
and the climate hiding
- “I only I” – women’s gender roles, iconoclastic (cannot weep for God)
- “smite a rock” – wanting a miracle – Moses splits rock releasing water to save people from
dehydration
In the Round Tower of Jhansi
Roles of men and women, especially undermining of Rossetti’s power and sacrifice
- “pale young wife… young, strong and so full of life” – Nora undermined, Rossetti as an non-
proclaimed proto-feminist unintentionally
- “thus to kiss and die” – Romeo and Juliet, thus a kiss, I die: representative of marriage
Maude Claire
- “like a village maid.. like a queen” – virgin-whore dichotomy and new woman
- “pale with pride” – deception views and expectation, the moment Nora’s character realises no
miracle will happen
- “waded ankle deep” – silk stockings
- “the lilies are budding now” (lily – Victorian womanhood ideal Angel in house tragic fate)
- “I’ll love him till he loves me best” – women fighting for their when they should fight for themselves
(Nora’s character development0
No Thank you John
Comparative to how Torvald treated Nora, no love just appearances, inner thoughts
, Rossetti’s infatuation with God and religion
- “let us strike hands as hearty friends” – live like brother and sister
Remember
Nihilistic poem showing Rossetti’s views of no one caring for her death, to be loved and abounded in
Victorian era
- “you tell me of our future that you planned” – live for herself, character progression, what Rossetti
could not do
- “it will be too late to counsel or pray” – Nora’s suicide
Shut out
Adam and Eve Genesis 2, Eve’s perspective of being shut out from God, how Rossetti felt – nihilism
“Tree of knowledge” – gender roles that women could not have
- “The door was shut”
- “A shadowless spirit kept the gate”
- “My garden, mine, beneath the sky” – possessive, Rossetti neglected her time on earth, SDS - greed
- “it had been mine, and it was lost” – what Nora did that Rossetti could not, SDS - envy
- “and dear they are, but no so dear” – Nora’s sacrifice and her children
- “Until I come to it again” – SDS, sloth
- “And good they are, but not the best” – SDS - pride
Souer Louse De la Misericorde
Persona poem – writing as Duchess of Valliere
Representative of new woman mentality, desire especially and Nora’s hope of miracles
- “I have desired and I have been desired” – Rossetti and her suitors, Dr Rank, Mrs Linde
- “Oh vanity of vanities, desire !” – to be selfish (women)
Song: When I am dead, my dearest
Rossetti reflecting on her religious mania and acceptance of how she had lived her life, following nihilism
(when she was younger and more hopeful)
- “and it you wilt remember/ and if though wilt, forget”
- “haply I may remember/ and haply may forget”
Nora’s sacrifice, Rossetti content with dead – idea of peaceful soul sleep, looking not to God but for her
own content: new woman
Twice
Pain of love on earth and struggle of being a woman, how society viewed her as a woman
- “yet a woman’s words are weak” – women have no power in society (cannot loan)
- “at your judgement that I heard” – God’s judgment and man
- “hope was written in sand” – easily washed up by man, temporary (Nora’s miracle)
- “I shall sing/ but not question much” – Nora and Torvald dynamic, role of women in society
Up-hill
Representative of Nora’s struggle as privileged but possibly what Nora will face after leaving, affirmative
poem answer the questions (full of rehtoricals)
- “then must I knock, or call when just in sight” – Nora breaking standards causing waves in
audiences and 3 waves of feminism
- “travel-sore and weak” – struggle facing, limited to by societies pressure to women
- “slow dark hours” – iconoclastic, challenging difficulty / faith is not easy
rhetorical questions where Rossetti is adamant and affirmative on religion however still questions
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