Attempt a critical appreciation of Christina Rossetti’s A Dirge.

Attempt a critical appreciation of Christina Rossetti’s A Dirge.

As is made plain by the simple title, this poem laments a death. It is about an early, untimely, death. The object of the poem was born at the wrong time of year and died, too young, at the wrong time of year, at the wrong stage of life. It was a short life – born in winter and dead in the spring. We have no way of knowing if this poem was written about a specific person, male or female, young or old. It might even apply to the death of a beloved pet. Less importance is nowadays attached to author intentionality than in the past – the reader is free to interpret a text within his or her own frame of reference.

Rossetti conflates the cycle of the changing seasons in nature with the human life cycle. The thrust of the poem is that the person written about ought to have enjoyed the natural cycle of life, equated with spring, summer, autumn, and winter.The simplicity of the language and the imagery makes it superficially easy to be understood by anyone with a knowledge the changes brought about in England by nature’s seasons. It might be a little puzzling for those unfamiliar with the British climate. Detailed analysis brings to the surface the depth of meaning and emotion in the poem.

The first line of the first stanza begins with a rhetorical question which clearly indicates the subject of the verse (a birth) and locates the event in wintertime. Why was the person about whom the speaker is thinking born in the wrong season? S(he) ought to have been born in the springtime, or the summer. The cuckoos in England start to call in early summer and grapes ripen on the vine as the heat of the sun intensifies during the summer months. Everything in the natural world is growing during these seasons. Even autumn, when birds are flocking in preparation for migration to warmer climates in avoidance of cold winter weather, would have been a preferable time to be born................................

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Milan Tomic

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.

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