The woodspurge

By Dante Gabriel Rosseti

Jochi de Melo y Mara Perino

Dante Gabriel Rosseti

Was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement.

Jochi de Melo y Mara Perino

Main Themes
Though the title of the poem is The Woodspurge, the poem is not about one. Nature itself is mentioned in the poem but it does not play a direct role. Nature is relegated to the background and the main, rather the only theme of the poem, is the narrators grief.

Jochi de Melo y Mara Perino

Structure
This poem has a focus on a personal loss. The narrators condition of mind is reflected in the choice of words, imagery and diction. Nature is kept vague and universal and it fades becoming just a backdrop to the narrators grief. The only clear details that emerge are of the flower.

Jochi de Melo y Mara Perino

Figures of Speech
This poem is shorn of ornamentations that mark Rossettis later poetry. The Woodspurge is all about the narrators grief and mental turmoil that forces him to move about not in any particular direction. When the wind stops, he flops down unaware of where he is, but in a moment of visual sharpness notices the flower accurately and that memory remains with him.

Jochi de Melo y Mara Perino