PROSERPINA


Afar away the light that brings cold cheer

Unto this wall,—one instant and no more

Admitted at my distant palace-door.

Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear

Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.

Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey

That chills me: and afar, how far away,

The nights that shall be from the days that were.

Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing

10 Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:

And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,

(Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring,

Continually together murmuring,)—

“Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!”



http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1872.s233.raw.html

Ballads and Sonnets (1881), first edition

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1881 October 17


According to the title of the poem, we realize that it makes reference to a character related to Latin mythology, Proserpine. In order to understand what the poem is about, we should have a look at the rape of the Proserpine myth.

One day, Proserpine, a young maid of spring, was out picking wildflowers with her mother, Ceres, goddess of grain when she saw the white petals of the narcissus flower. She began straying far from her mother. Out of the dark depths sprang Pluto, god of the underworld. He grabbed Proserpine and drove his chariot back into the caves of the earth ... Ceres, devastated by the kidnapping allowed the earth to become barren. Mercury, the messenger god, wandered the underworld until he came to the misty throne room of Pluto and Proserpine. There he told Pluto he must return Proserpine. She remembered the joyful times of her mother's love, the wildflowers, and open sunlit meadows. Before returning Proserpine, Pluto offered her the seeds of a pomegranate fruit. When Ceres heard this, she told Proserpine that the fruit was a symbol of marriage. As a result, when Fall and Winter come, the earth grows cold and barren because Proserpine must return to the underworld with Pluto. But when she comes back, Ceres turns the world to spring and summer. (Chrys Gakopoulos Mythology)/.

The poem follows the typical structure of sonnets. Its rhyme is A-B-B-A-A-C-C-A-D-E-E-D-D-D. We can find visual rhyme: wing-bring-murmuring; pine- Proserpine. But also phonetic rhyme: cheer-drear-here-were; more-door; grey-away; sing-pine- Proserpine.

In my opinion, this poem is a king of self-reflection. Proserpine is making a reflection about what she has done. She is considering her acts as errors and she is regretful because she is far away from everything she wants. The poem is divided in 4 sentences until the last verse, according to everything that Proserpine loves and they are far from her, v1-v3; v4-v5; v6-v8, v9-v-13. The presence of Proserpine, Jane Morris, is justified through the use of the first personal pronoun “must thrall me here (v.5), chills me (v.7), Afar from mine own self I seem (v.9)”. The structure of this poem is similar to the dramatic monologue that Robert Browning uses in most of his poems. There is an author, Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, but at the same time the main character of the poem is who experiments the sensations, the narrator. The presence of the author, D.G.R. can be found in the last verse “Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!” Here, when he is exclaiming Proserpine, the author is addressing to Jane Morris. In this verse the author shows all his feelings. It is a kind of a scream of despair.

If we look at Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s biography, we find a curious detail that has an important relation to that poem and that myth. The one of his lovers was Jane Morris, who is the model of the picture. “Between 1871 and 1874, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poetry focuses on his love for Jane Morris” (Jerome J. McGAnn. biographyl). But this relationship didn’t have a happy end, because she got married with William Morris. For this reason, the poem could be interpreted as a way in which the author expresses his love and as we can see in the 11th verse, “And still some heart unto some soul doth pine”, acts as an allusion to his purpose to seduce Jane from her unhappy marriage (Peter Nahum and Sally Burgess. drawings/5.html). We can justify it through the adjectives that the poet uses throughout the whole poem, referring to the coldness “cold (v.1), grey (v.6), chills (v.7), the great use of the adverb “afar”. In verse 5 “Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here” the author curses the “Dire Fruit”, the pomegranate because for tasting it, she was obliged to stay in hell with her husband, making Jane his slave. This verse can also show the Victorian society, because in those times you couldn’t marry with the man you loved, the marriages were arranged. The middle social classes got married between them in order to maintain their reputation.

If we pay attention to the picture, we can observe a woman with wavy black hair, solemn eyes, curved mouth, and sinuous neck. A woman, who remains in the darkness, symbolizing the desire, something horrible. There is a contrast of light: the half-light creates an atmosphere of intrigue that makes us want to investigate this world that is far away from us. Something forbidden always attracts more than something that is allowed. The light, which comes inside the room, symbolizes the upper world. It can be understood as the desire of going out from that place where she remains. At this point, we find a parallelism between Jane Morris and Eve. According to the Christian Religion, Eve tasted the apple of sin and she was expelled from paradise and Adam. On the other hand, the light is concentrated on her hands and on her face. The woman has in her hands the sin fruit, the pomegranate. The author has drawn a little byte that means the beautiful girl has eaten that fruit coming from hell and she is condemned to stay there “Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.” The light in her face shows a sinful woman. She represents the “femme fatale”. She is showing parts of her body, which to show them was a sin, the uncovered shoulder, the long wavy hair, and her neck. One image that the author has drawn in the picture to show the desire and the temptation of sin is the wavy hair. (Meghan Edwards '06.edwards12.) Other interpretation could be that the wavy hair is a metaphor which represents the Snake. According to the Christian Religion, the snake was who incited Eve to taste the apple. “This kind of picture can be interpreted as a criticism of that society,” because in the 19th century any vice and bad habit must be eliminated not only in public places, but also in the most secret places of their house”. (Quesada Monge, Rodrigo. Perfiles.). In the left corner, we can see an incense lamp. If we follow the Greek or Latin mythology, Gods feed on ambrosia and when a Mortal wants that God to help him, they light this kind of lamps in order for the smoke to arrive to the Olympus, where the Gods live. I can interpret this as the desire of Dante Gabrielle Rossetti of being with his lover.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Edwards12. The Devouring Woman and Her Serpentine Hair in Late-Pre-Raphaelitism. Pre-Raphaelites, Aesthetes, and Decadents. Meghan Edwards '06, English/History of Art 151,BrownUniversity,2004.

http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/edwards12.html (25.02.06)

Biography: The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A hypermedia Research Archive. EDITOR: Jerome J. McGAnn

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/biography.html (25.02.06)

Mythology: Rape of Proserpine. Chrys Gakopoulos Art Director, Communications and Marketing University College

http://www.public.asu.edu/~chrysg/portfolio/mythology/. (25.02.06)

Drawings/5. Proserpine. Commentary Peter Nahum and Sally Burgess.

http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/drawings/5.html (25.02.06)

Dramatic Monologue: An Introduction. George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/dm1.html (26.02.06)

Perfiles: Quesada Monge, Rodrigo. EL GERMEN (1850) : LA REVISTA DE LOS PRE-RAFAELISTAS. Revista Virtual. Ańo 2 Número 17. 12 de Mayo al 12 de Junio de 2000. Santiago de Chile.

http://www.escaner.cl/escaner17/perfiles.htm (26.02.06)