"Shut Out" and "Winter: My Secret"

Shut Out:- mournful, depressing, desperate, full of grief, powerless, nostalgic, regretful, isolated.
Winter: My Secret:- Playful, sadistic, powerful, coy, perky, slightly flirtacious, conversational, teasing.

Tone is different in each of the poems which may be due to the narrator's status change. In "Winter: My Secret", the narrator is the one in control, where as in "Shut Out" the 1st person persona is the one being denied access and therefore is powerless.

Shut out notes:-

• 2nd stanza: list, complec, repetition, imperative, dialogue.
• Juxtaposition between the lexical choices in stanza 2 & 3.
• Complex sentance- complex feelings - form reflects content.
• 3rd stanza: spirit described as "shadowless" (fear of spirit). "Blank and unchanging like the grave"- choice of similie shows fear and hatred towards the spirit.
• "peering" - specific word choice and the connotations the verb has, ie. looking at something you can't have.
• 4th stanza: pleading tone of imperative, simple sentance, "small twig" -feeling of desperation.

Winter: My Secret notes:- (Language Analysis)

• Perhaps (Adverb and playful tone)
• Over-confidence (To hide the fact she doesn't have a secret, an insecurity)
• Rhetorical question ( High frequency, reinforce flirtacious tone, recreate the speaker's voice)
• Internal rhyme (Playful)
• "Fie!" (Playful disgust, pretend outrage)
• Ambiguous title (Is winter her secret? Is winter her listener? Is winter a metaphor?)

Symbolic nature: society, relationships, afterlife. Ie. Narrative used as a 'vehicle' for...

Rossetti has common stylistic techniques:

• 1st person narrative.
• Recreation of a spoken voice.
• Self-obssessed narrators

Nature in Rossetti's poems

-Discuss how Rossetti writes about nature.

• Nature in "Shut Out" seems to be a metaphor for the narrator's love.
• Aspects of nature such as "violet bed" and it's comparison to other natural imagery seems to be used symbollically to show her new love is not as special, deep or meaningful as the previous.
• The use of nature in "Winter: My Secret" seems to be a metaphor for the narrator's feelings and mood. There is a mournful tone to the narrator's voice when focusing on nature as a symbol for lost love.

Notes on both poems:

Winter: My Secret:- Aggressive side of nature, (Ferocious and harrowing)
                                 Winter is cold and unforgiving,
                                 Nature is used as an obstacle.
                                
Shut Out:- Not getting into heaven (symbolic),
                  Nature has healing properties.


Every essay has a topic sentance that tells what I think of the poem linked to the question.
-Quotation.
-Highlight how the language is used in the quotation.


Shut Out paragraph: Rossetti's narrator seems to believe that nature has healing properties as they ask for "some buds" to cheer their "outcast state". This part of the poem is in dialogue which makes the reader feel more empathy for the narrator because they have memorised the upsetting conversation they had and can recite it. Suggesting that it is the only thing on their mind and has deeply troubled them.

Winter: My Secret paragraph:  Aspects of nature in "Winter: My Secret" are portrayed as an obstacle as the narrator is unable to tell her secret "today" because "it froze, and blows and snows". These signs of winter are joined in an internal rhyme which emphasises the fragility and reserved nature of the narrator during this season.
 

Poem Analysis: "Winter: My Secret"