"UpHill" and "Down"
"UpHill" and "Down"
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
West Virginia University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Victorian Poetry.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 192.76.8.45 on Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:40:08 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Brief
Articles
and
Notes
367
This content downloaded from 192.76.8.45 on Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:40:08 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
368 / VICTORIANPOETRY
she discusses"Up-hill"by itself or in relation to other poems. I wish to make
a detailed,side-by-sideexaminationof these two poems to show that they are
more closely linked than Mrs. Packer or other commentatorshave indicated,
that to read either poem by itself, in fact, is to miss an entire dimension of
meaningand poetic effect. Such an examination,by givingdetailed attention
to "Amor Mundi"as well as to "Up-hill,"will also help to adjustthe balance
of criticalattention between the two.
The most obvious link between the two poems under considerationis
their central metaphor representing life as a road or path. Each poem
describesone of the ways offered to the individualin his journey throughlife;
together they present a pair of contrasting though complementary images
which are truly archetypal,for these divergentroadsare found in the earliest
literaturesand in all cultures and receiveddefinitiveexpressionin Matthew7.
13-14:
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broadis the way, that leadethto
destruction,andmany therebe whichgo in thereat:
Becausestraitis the gate, and narrowis the way, whichleadethunto life, and few there
be that find it.
Christina Rossetti's use of a paired archetypal image which echoes wellknown works of literature not only links "Amor Mundi"and "Up-hill,"it
accounts for their great concentration of meaning despite their relative
brevity.
Examination of other ways in which "Up-hill"and "Amor Mundi"are
linked revealsin both the happy correspondencebetween form and content.
In "Up-hill," the halting movement of the short lines made up largely of
This content downloaded from 192.76.8.45 on Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:40:08 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
This content downloaded from 192.76.8.45 on Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:40:08 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
370/ VICTORIANPOETRY
number seven so indispensableto folk rhymers and such archaic-sounding
expressionsas "lovelocks,""an' it please ye," "doat on," "scaledand hooded
worm," "the eternal term" and "thou beatest," but they are scattered
throughout the five stanzasso that the poem is not primarilydependent upon
them for its effect; the rest of the poem is conventionalin its diction, often
colloquial, and like "Up-hill," basically Anglo-Saxon. The vocabulary of
"Up-hill,"in fact, consists mainly of such familiarnouns as "road," "roof,"
"inn," "night,""door," "labour,"and "beds"and verbslike "take," "begin,"
"hide," "miss," "meet," "knock," and "find." In both poems it is evident
that Christinadid not follow her brother Dante Gabriel'spractice of reading
through old romances for what he called "stunningwords for poetry," and
the fact that she changed line 18 of "Amor Mundi"which originally read:
"This way whereof thou weetest, I fear is hell's own track,"indicates clearly
that the self-consciouslyantiquewas not the effect she wanted.
"Amor Mundi"and "Up-hill"have other similaritiesto folk literaturein
addition to those already mentioned. For example, "Amor Mundi," which
Dante Gabriel and ChristinaRossetti thought reminiscent of "The Demon
Lover," uses question-and-answerdialogue and the journey motif as does the
traditionalwork, and both deal with the theme of temptation, one which is
central to many of Christina's poems. Unlike the folk ballad's rather
circumstantialaccount, the Rossetti poem is not primarilyconcerned with
telling a story, and only the second stanzaof this literaryballadis essentially
narrative. As in "Up-hill," the basic situation is universalizedrather than
particularized,and the primaryfocus in both is psychological,or one might
say, existential.
Another characteristicof a largebody of folk ballads,the interweavingof
the natural and the supernatural,can also be seen in "Up-hill" and "Amor
Mundi," for although the speakersin the two poems are not identified, the
second speakerin each, the one who makes reply, seems to be one of "Those
who have gone before." ChristinaRossetti used the motif of the revenantin a
variety of ways in numerouspoems;her early sonnet, "After Death," depicts
a dead woman speaking as her lover leans over her bier, and in "A Chilly
Night," the speakerechoes a refrain often found in traditionalballadsas she
begs the spirit of her dead mother, "Oh, Mother,make a lonely bed for me."
Often the revenants are recriminatory,either because, as in "The Ghost's
Petition," excessive mourninghas made it impossible for the dead to rest, or
because a loved one has broken a vow as in "The Poor Ghost" and "The Hour
and the Ghost."
There are many questions concerningthe speakersin the two poems (is it
significant,for instance, that "AmorMundi"uses quotation marksto indicate
the change of speakerswhile "Up-hill"does not?), and identification of the
This content downloaded from 192.76.8.45 on Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:40:08 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
This content downloaded from 192.76.8.45 on Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:40:08 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions