PosterĄG Jessie Chu at 11:5:22 12/13/97 from c550-5.svdcc.fju.edu.tw
MentionedĄG
Dante Gaberiel Rosetti's The Blessed Damozel demonstrates/ illustrates
an emparadised woman missing her earthly lover. I think the most interesting point of this poem is that the poet is the one who emparadises the woman and simantaneously makes her powerless. Being a goddess, under a logical condition, the blessed damozel should have omnipotent and omniscient power. Or at least, she can do whatever she wants but not sadly sits in the heaven and sees her earthly lover. From the passage of the poem, we can see that Rossetti creats a sensual female image of a goddess for his readers/ gazers and also for himself. "She had three lilies in her hands/ And the stars in her hair were seven."(L5,6) (Actually this image reminds me of the female characters in Japanese comics.) "Her hair that lay along her back/ was yellow like the ripe corn."(L10,11) It refers to the plumpy and mature characteristics of the damonzel. These are exactly the male expectations of the female image-purity, innocence, sipirituality. "...Until her bosom most have made/ the bar she leaned on warm."(L45,46) This sensual image and physical closeness enhaces her image of chasity, tnederness, semtimentality, and melancholy. The readers/ gazers seem to sense the warmth of her body. But she is not touched and restricted in the bar. Undoubtedly Rossetti creates an ideal female image through his poem and his painting. What grotesque is that she has no power. she is a doddess void of power. She has to stay in the heaven being a sacred damozel and keeping her virginity. In other words, she can't get married with her earthly lover and have sex with him. There is a stanza revealing the damozel's desire, L91-96. By the ending, "And wept (I heard her tears.)", I think the damozel prefers to be a mortal wife rather than an immortal goddess. So who makes the damozel be a goddess? It's Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I think the epathy of the damozel is similar to Keats' Psyche. The poets both emparadise or announce the position of goddess for their ideal women. Then the goddesses can't contact with their lovers. Later Keats asserts that he is the priest of Phyche's shrine/ fane. As for Rossetti, he is the one who controls the heaven and confines the damozel. The heaven is Rossetti's regime which prisons the damozel and her virginity. So is she really the "blessed" damozel? It's is interesting questions for all readers/ gazers. Besides words/ language is the poet's power to construct their ownership. We would say "Keats' Phyche" rather than "Cupid's Psyche", and DGR's "the blessed damozel." The ways we call thses two women also claim the poets' strong and exlusive posessiveness and to maintain the sublime of the two goddesses. |