Hypnotic Melody in "Echo"

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Known to early-0th century historians as a prominent Victorian feminist, Christina Rossetti actually lived a quiet, conservative life that was greatly affected by her staunch adherence to the doctrines of the Evangelical branch of the Church of England. Two separate engagements to be married were broken due to religious differences. Rossetti was not able to overcome these disagreements with any potential spouse; she was never married and lived as a recluse for the last fifteen years of her life. Perhaps because of these obstacles in the path of her romantic life, a major theme demonstrated in Rossetti’s poems is the longing for true, lasting love. From an early age, she also suffered from several severe health problems, including a mysterious disease, which was diagnosed sometimes as angina and sometimes as tuberculosis. She was eventually to die of cancer at age 64. It is possible to speculate that because of her health problems, Rossetti constantly felt that her death was impending. This would explain the preoccupation she seems to have had with death and its potentials; in fact, she wrote several poems from the standpoint of someone already passed into the realm of the dead. “Echo” draws on both familiar themes of death and lost love. The elements of style prevalent in the poem are invaluable in conveying the dreamlike tone of the poem.

The first stanza begins with an invitation to the lover to return at night, in the form of a reverie. The stanza begins explicitly, “Come to me in the silence of the night;” (1) and repeats the request “come” at the beginning of each of lines one to three, and line five. The immediate and clear entrance of repetition provides a commanding introduction to the poem’s melodic tone. This instance, however, is the sole occurrence of repetition in the poem until the idea of death is introduced in the second stanza.

Another element of style introduced in the first stanza and continued throughout the poem is the prominence of assonance. Although not featured as heavily in the first stanza as in the last two, the effect of alliteration is unquestionable and significant. Among the most noticeable instances of assonance are the repetition of the “o” sounds in “O memory, hope, love of finished years.” (6), and the interlinked “o”, “i”, and “e” sounds in “That opening, letting in, lets out no more” (1). These occurrences serve the crucial purpose of linking their respective words, allowing the poem to become a fluid, collective piece. The profound effect of assonance in the first stanza of “Echo” becomes clear when one considers the alternatives. If, for example, Rossetti had chosen close synonyms in the place of several key words, the feel of the poem would have been quite different. “O memory, hope, love of finished years.” (6) might become “O remembrance, faith, desire for finished years.” While the meanings of the individual words are extremely similar, the tones evoked by the two lines are completely different. The altered line is choppy and does not flow at all. The original, however, is an entirely different story; the linked vowels create a smooth, streamlined, and indeed dreamlike mood.

One more component adding to the melodial quality of the poem is the distinct form. There are three stanzas; each stanza is composed of a quatrain with alternating rhyming lines (in other words, pattern ABAB) followed by a couplet. Rossetti constructed this piece in iambic meter of alternating lengths. In general, each stanza follows a pattern of three lines of iambic pentameter followed by one line of iambic trimeter. A line of iambic dimeter follows the line of iambic trimeter, and each stanza is concluded with a final line of iambic pentameter.




This pattern, however, is slightly varied in the second stanza. Instead of the pattern just discussed, both the second and sixth lines of the stanza (lines eight and twelve) contain an extra unstressed syllable, creating a feminine ending and departing from the overall masculine trend of the piece. Lines eight and twelve both introduce a rather somber aspect of the poem. Their reunion should have occurred in Paradise, says the speaker in line eight, implying that the two are destined for different afterlives. Not only are the lovers separated by their current situation, but apparently they will never be reunited, even in Heaven. Interestingly, Rossetti seemed to live her mortal life in such a way as to avoid this plight; extremely devout in her Anglicanism, she rejected two fianc�s because they were not “Christian” enough. The twelfth line creates a vivid and distressing image of one lover waiting inside the gates of Paradise, waiting for her loved one to enter; however, she can not exit to find him on earth. Both these lines illustrate the permanence of the lovers’ plights, and the departure from the overall iambic meter of the poem helps to accent this permanence.

The temporary modification of the meter is not the only change that occurs in the second stanza. A noticeable increase in the amount of repetition throughout the poem also begins in the seventh line. “Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,” (7) says the speaker; while the words of the first stanza are melodious and pleasant, this is the first indication that the “dream” of reuniting with her lover is impossible. The repetition of “sweet” alerts the reader to the poet’s hopelessness. While “sweet” carries positive connotations, “too sweet” holds a warning that something must be amiss; “too bitter sweet” provides an assessment of the dream that is definitely negative, although the reason is at this point unknown. It is difficult to miss the prominent use of repetition in the first line of the second stanza, and this use makes it also difficult to miss the change in attitude.

The repetition re-introduced here continues and gradually increases throughout the last part of the poem, ending with three lines entirely dominated by repetition. Rossetti writes “Pulse for pulse, breath for breath Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago” (16-18). The reiteration of “pulse”, “breath”, “low”, and “long ago” punctuates the lines; they seem to create a lasting image of the permanence of the lovers’ plight. The four phrases are repeated methodically, rhythmically, and utterly sadly. The repetition conveys an image of a person in a trance, whether it is the trance of sleep or that of death. While heartbroken by the turn of events that has befallen them, the speaker makes no effort to convey hope in the future. She knows that there is as little chance of reunion as she believes there is of changing the laws of Heaven and Hell.

Written in 1854, after her first broken engagement but before her second, Rossetti writes “Echo” in the form of a dream of a lost lover. Most notably, she makes use of a strict rhyme scheme, assonance, and iambic meter to create a lulling, melodic rhythm reminiscent of the persuasive dreams that are had every night, countless times across the world, by romantics dreaming that their former lover has returned. It is after the second stanza begins, however, that a heavy pattern of repetition becomes more obvious and the poem begins to take on a more sinister import. The reader recognizes that the speaker of the poem is not an average dreamer, but rather a departed woman longing for her former lover, who remains among the living. While the sounds of the alliteration and assonance that are prevalent throughout the poem contribute a sensual, dreamlike quality to the poem, the appearance of significant repetition in the second two stanzas punctuates and explicates the poem’s morose undertones.

References

“Christina Rossetti An Overview” http//www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/crov.html

“The Dead Woman Talks Back Christina Rossetti’s Ironic Intonation of the Dead Fair Maiden” http//www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/gpl1.html G.P. Landow.

“Love as an Influence on Christina Rossetti” http//www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/rossetti.html. From The Romantic Imagination, C. M. Bowra. December 18.

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