Dramatic Monologue Love and Death - 輔仁大學英國語文學系Fu Jen.ppt

Reference “Porphyria’s Lover”-visual presentation /comics/porphyria/porphyria.html Dramatic Monologue: Love and Death  Christina Rossetti and Robert Browning Outline “Song” (“When I’m Dear, My Dearest”) Christina Rossetti Dramatic Monologue: Definition “Song” as a Dramatic Monologue “My Last Duchess” “Porphyria’s Lover” Robert Browning as a Victorian Poet Song When I am dead, my dearest,Sing no sad songs for me;Plant thou no roses at my head,Nor shady cypress tree.Be the green grass above meWith showers and dewdrops wet;And if thou wilt, remember,And if thou wilt, forget. Questions: Repetition, Pattern and Contrast? Meanings of the last two lines. Tone? Song (2) I shall not see the shadows,I shall not feel the rain;I shall not hear the nightingaleSing on as if in pain.And dreaming through the twilightThat doth not rise nor set,Haply I may remember,And haply may forget. [1st stanza] No sad song, roses, shady Cypress tree Green grass wet with rain and dewdrops A Song version: /authors/crossetti/plockinger1.html.edit 羅大佑’s version “Song” –Multiple Meanings Release: Death as a release; no need for mourning ritual or obsession; Reluctance: Death being an eternal midnight, the speaker rejects what she knows she cannot enjoy, and her enumeration of them reveals her love (e.g. nature and natural cycles); Both. A woman talking about her own death, but not used as a symbol by men. Christina Georgina Rossetti in Context (1830-1894) Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sister but not accepted as a member of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; serve as Dante Gabriel Rossettis model for virgin contradictory images produced by DGR: (top to bottom): an innocent girl, tempestuous one, a serious and aloof woman. vs. the Pre-Raphaelite Women CR as Virgin Ecce Ancilla Domini,1850? Dante Gabriel Rossetti, CR as a Writer Seen as a ‘simple’ writer by her brother William Michael R and other male critics (e.g. at best a spontaneous and at worst a naive