Soeur Louise De La Misericorde Christina Rossetti
Background Rossetti's early writings were very much influenced by the Gothic fiction she read as a child. She was particularly influenced by the novels of Charles Robert Maturin and several of her early unpublished poems include characters that he created. In Maturin's “The Fatal Revenge”, Rosalia is torn between romantic and spiritual love, choosing to run away from the convent in which she is placed. The woman Rossetti portrays as Soeur Louise de la Misericorde, echo Rosalia's struggles as she tries to overcome romantic love.
Context The poem is set in the historical period of Jansenism – an austere Catholic movement of 17th Century France. The movement encouraged people to renounce their sins and live within religious orders, such as nunneries and monasteries. Louise de la Valliere became a Carmelite nun to renounce her sins.
The persona Soeur Louise de Misericorde is based upon the French Duchess de la Valliere, at Louis XIV’s court. She was his mistress and together, they had several children. She converted to Catholicism and became a nun, known as Soeur Louise. A “misericorde” was a long thin dagger used to grant mercy to injured knights, so her adopted religious name translates as “Sister Louise of mercy.” She was also very unusual in that she wrote several religious books, including some that were considered to be so important that some questioned whether she’d written them – apparently they were too good to have been written by a woman!
Summary The poem presents the persona of the nun Sister Louise, and is written in the form of a dramatic monologue. Sister Louise feels conflicted; she is tormented by desire and longing and this has wasted her life.
Stanza One The opening stanza acknowledges her past existence, where she was both the object of desire and experienced desire herself. The second line makes it clear that these days of desire are over. However, ironically, she still feels the emotions and desires that she used to, even though she has been physically deprived of it. Rossetti creates the metaphor of a fire to represent Louise’s desire. The word “desire” is repeated throughout the poem the reinforce how she cannot escape this feeling of longing. “dust and dying embers” could refer to her ageing body – which appear to laugh at her desire. “dust” has connotations of death and the funeral service, suggesting that she is nearing the end of her life. Her desperate desire is pointless now that she is too old and too separated from the world to fully experience it. “Where is the hire for which my life was hired?” – Sister Louise questions what recompense she has had for living such a life of faith. Each stanza ends with the line “Oh vanity of vanities, desire!” The repetition and exclamation emphasise the outpouring of emotion and the desire that she is incapable of forgetting. The line alludes to the Old Testament; Ecclesiastes: “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”, which suggests that all human endeavours are futile. The use of refrain emphasises how she cannot escape the emotion.
Stanza Two The long vowel sounds in the alliterative “Longing and love” is juxtaposed with the sharper alliteration of “perished pleasure”, emphasise how quickly her love has been destroyed. The metaphor of the fire is furthered in this stanza but now it is “disenkindled”, showing that it has now expired. Some readers have suggested that the “kin” within this choice of verb could relate to the family and children that she has had to turn her back on in choosing to devote herself to her faith. “mire” is used again in the final stanza and suggests that her memories cannot escape from her muddy thoughts and memories of passion. She describes her love with the metaphor of a fountain, exaggerating her suffering and subsequently making it clear that she sees no end to her passion and therefore, her suffering.
Stanza Three By starting this stanza with “Now”, the reader is brought back to Sister Louise’s present misery. “Love’s deathbed” connotes that her love is dying. There is a semantic field of loss in this stanza. Repetition of “trickles” and “drop”, suggests something ebbing away. Rossetti uses the image of a rose to show the original beauty of her desire and how now it only brings her pain and suffering. Could the “prickles” be an allusion to Christ’s crown of thorns and hint at the theme of sacrifice? “dross of life” sums up how empty her life is without love.
Stanza Four In this stanza, the speaker laments that she has been unable to fully develop her relationship with God “which might have strained higher”. Rossetti presents this idea by using the metaphor of a garden, which turns to sterile mud. “death-struck” appears to play on the more usual phrase “love-struck”, suggesting that her life has been damaged by something deadly rather than life-giving. The poem ends with the same refrain as all the other stanzas. The fact that she ends with the same emotional exclamation shows that she has not moved on from the start of the poem; the speaker has been unable to resolve her emotions and remains unhappy and trapped with her feelings of desire.
STRUCTURE AND FORM Use of Iambic rhythm in the first stanza provides a natural pace and forward movement which suggests desire may actually be inevitable. Disruption in the rhythm particularly “longing and love”, and “trickles, trickles”, “drop by drop” which lengthen and slow the pace, suggests the speaker lingering over the memory of desire and love. Rhyme scheme – ABBAB throughout. The final fifth line, the refrain disrupts the regular formality of the poem with its additional B rhyme, just as desire has disrupted Louise’s life. Elsewhere in the poem, internal and crossed rhyme draws attention to key words: desire, love, fire. Repetition – key phrases are repeated, including the refrain highlighting Louise’s anguish. “Longing and love”, “disenkindled fire” and “mire” are also repeated, showing the depths of the destruction caused by desire.