Analysis Of Rossetti's Poetry: The Imagery Of Death

First, there are several terms that the readers must peruse and link with other lines to comprehend the imagery of death. Rossetti uses the word “cold” throughout her poem, and this is critical because it can refer to the coldness of the skin or the isolation that the speaker is experiencing. She begins her poem with telling the physical state of death, and the repeated phrases “changed and cold, how changed and very cold!” whisper a sense of sorrow to the readers’ ears because the speaker sounds as if s/he is mourning. Rossetti continues to provide more contradictory words such as “stiffened” with “smiling lips” and “calm” with “cold eyes.” These words are supposed to display the peaceful state of a dead body while exhibiting a sense of eeriness to the readers’ imagination.

The readers can perceive that the speaker is still alive but contemplating death instead. He or she does not relate this experience of death to biblical allusions because that may lead the poem away from exploring death’s metaphysical features. In the introduction of this essay, it mentions that the poem has a tremendous influence from the Romanticism, which it dealt with the philosophical and emotional principles of an aspect that the populace associated with the religion like death. Rossetti wants to lead her audience in the direction where they can perceive death differently instead of linking it to religion. The words that she uses in this poem such as “eyes,” “times,” “chime,” and “cold” all denote two different realms other than heaven, the physical and spiritual realm. However, her diction also appears relatable to her audience because there is a limitation to this experience of death. She does not go beyond what she does not know about death, and she only retells her tale through what it would feel like if an individual