This document covers the poem: 'Piteous is my Rhyme' by Christina Rossetti. I studied this poem for my A Level, Edexcel English Literature Exam as part of the poetry module.
By constructing these summarises and notes these provided me with ideas and themes which I could for my essays and thesis...
• Begins with the adjective ‘piteous’ immediately creating a sombre tone
• Extenuates a feeling of nihilism and ennui from the beginning of the poem
• Rossetti use of the personal pronoun ‘my’ demonstrates a sense of possessiveness. It
ambiguously the pity for herself and her ‘rhyme’
• ‘rhyme’ directly linking to structure
• Inability to find he words to articulate her feelings. Not deep and philosophical as she would like
• ‘Is’ sense of definitive. Ensue of boundaries in the present tense. Persona feel unable to
overcome this
• Should say ‘my rhyme is piteous’
Language:
• Two antithetical views of love. First stanza is negative; the second positive and optimistic. The
concept is simple, but the concept is simple, but the construction and craftmanship complex and
skilled. Poem begins with the persona stating her musing on love are ‘piteous’. She has been
unable to realize the true joy of the experience because she has been consumed by the pain and
worry that sometimes comes along with it. The speaker has come to the conclusion that love is
immortal, just like the souls of those who experience it. In the second half of the poem she
speaks on how love transcends the lives it touches. It last far beyond the sight of humankind,
reaching out, touching and influencing everything
• Voice is that of a first-person narrator who may be the poet. She addresses the reader in a way
that might be false modesty, but the tone is intelligent and thoughtful; the abstract ideas about
love are complex. Love is abstract and personified and there is no one set definition. Few
exceptions the poem is almost entirely monosyllabic
• ‘Piteous my rhyme is’. Opening line teases the reader. Is the rhyme and the poets craftmanship
that is he point or is it the subject matter? Or is it the poet herself? Or maybe all three?
Uncertainty draws the reader in. Inverted word order, starting with the adjective, a device
known as anastrophe, designed to give ‘piteous’ emphasis
• Adjective ‘piteous’. Unable to realize the true joy of the experience because she has been
consumed by the pain and worry that sometimes comes along with it. Persona has come to the
conclusion that love is immortal, just like the souls of whose who experience it. In the second
half of piteous my rhyme, the persona on how love transcends the lives it touches. It last far
beyond the sight of humankind, reaching out, touching and influencing everything
• ‘What while I muse of love and pain’. Idea of ‘what’ appears out of place in the poem. Causes
the reader to pause to make sense of what Rossetti is saying. Rossetti could utilize this pause to
emphasises that her mind is lost in a void of words that fail to inadequately describe the
contempt of love. The dynamic verb ‘muse’ creates a sense of ennui and listlessness of the
persona. She is unable to find the words and finds herself stuck in a pit
• Grammar and syntax are odd. Line two begins ‘what while’ and the sentence isn’t complete,
leaving the reader expecting a main clause which does not come. Effect is unsettling
, • Failed loves are listed by the persona. Love that is unrequited, caused pain and is undeserved.
Repetition of the word forming a hypnotic refrain, an example of anaphora. There are no
conjunctions, words like ‘an’ or ‘but’, so list is asyndetic
• ‘Of love misspent, of love in vain’. Idea of the adjective ‘vain’ demonstrates a sense of
pointlessness and nihilism towards the concept of love. The persona is unable relinquishes in
the time wasted of pointless transverse of love which were unrequited
• ‘Love that is not loved again’. Abstract noun ‘love’ is repeated. Could demonstrate the
desperation of the persona to find love or to be able to describe it to the depth which she feels
it needs to be adequately written
• ‘And is this all then?’. Ambiguous. Statement could be used by Rossetti in order to condemn
herself or her inability to complexly form the words which she believes adequality describes the
thoughts and connotations arising from love. Rhetorical question equal creates a sense of
mundanity and mundane. The person is stuck by the constraints and limits of her own
knowledge and intelligence and expresses a sense of ennui by not being able to come up with
something more intellectual and philosophical
• ‘All long as time is’. Initially misleading. Rossetti suggests that as long as there is ‘time’ there is
love. Reader may initially assume she means that love is eternal, just as time is. But she asserts
that time is a ‘span’, a short period, implying that love is just a brief and meaningless. Note that
‘love’ is personified, a vivid characterisation that adds life to an abstract idea.
• ‘Love laveth’, Alliterative expresses the idea that despite the contempt of love being eternal the
persona feels unable to put into words the complexities of love.
• ‘Love loveth’ for ‘as long as time is’. Suggesting that the damage love can cause is part of the
equation but not everything her ‘rhyme’ should focus on.
• Note that ‘love’ is personified, a vivid characterisation that adds life to an abstract idea.
Negativity continues. Rossetti’s negative world time is brief ‘but a span’. Worse, it is the
dalliance space of dying man’, meaning that humanity’s stay on earth is trivial and pointless and
short. Man is ‘dying’, implying that his existence is only to progress towards death. Readers may
be reminded of Macbeth’s speech in act 5, scene 5 ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our
yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dust death.... signifying nothing’
• ‘time’ as a concept that a dying man can only dabble in. It is beyond comprehension, even to
those who are close to being destroyed by it. The next lines refer to humans, and the human
soul, as ‘immortal’. The person asks if the troubles she normally writes about are all that
immortals could achieve. Only been ‘small’ gain. The next stanza is one of these gains
• ‘Time is but a span, the dalliance space of dying man’. Creates an idea of a void, the personas
words are lost in space and time and she is unable to configure something to represent love.
Equally the idea of a ‘dying man’ creates an atmosphere of claustrophobia. Unable to prevent
death even with love. Rossetti appears to be asserting the limitations of love in its own rights
• Idea that even ‘immortals’ gain nothing from love, hence the ‘gain were small then’
• Idea of ‘is this all immortals can?’. Rhetorical question placing emphasis on the lexical choice
‘immortals’ demonstrating that regardless of love one is still at the mercy of the natural
elements. It is only an omnibenevolent god who is able to control life and death in such a
substantial and transformative way. Creates a sense of anxieties that regardless of love one is
limited in their powers to be able to decide their own life's path.
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