Winter : My Secret Analysis

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not today; it froze, and blows and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
Today's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to everyone who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave the truth untested still.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,
WHen drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

.: :.

im doing this poem for as english. in my group we discussed the idea that the person in the poem could be a man or women to see this you have to read through the poem thinking that it could be a man then try and interpret it into the poem.

| Posted on 2009-11-14 | by a guest

.: :.

The pregnancy idea works, but I think we need to give Rossetti more credit than that. She is a woman but more importantly she is a poet, and I do not think that she would want her topic to be so narrowly confined. Yes, the poem is coquetish and flirty, and it definitely has a feminine voice, but I saw many more general philosophic concerns about the human condition.
Spring is a time of rebirth--maybe she doesn't trust spring because she is struggling with the idea of an afterlife existing. Keats thinks about that too, and as someone noted, there is a correlation between Keats and Rossetti.
Nietzsche wrote that everything profound wears a mask. I think that Rossetti is talking about a secret as a mask--yes, she can be referring to an intimate relation with a man-- but more importantly I think she is talking about the barriers that exist between any and every two individuals. The inner world and the outer world. And the inner world is unattainable for an outsider. It's simply impossible, and she notices that and I think she's asking herself why we even have the assumption and hope of intimacy.
I especially love her lines, "You would not peck? I thank you for good will, / Believe, but leave the truth untested still." She wants to have intimacy, and she knows that other want it to (good will), but she is wise enough to recognize that even when one does not mean to cause hurt but means only to have intimacy, it may be inevitable that it ends in failure.
And what is this secret, anyways? It could be the mystery of individuality, the mystery of our own perceptions and understanding of our life that cannot be communicated to another human being. And the existence of individuality and alienation, we know, is no secret at all.

| Posted on 2009-07-31 | by a guest

.: :.

I think this poem is based around a sexual relationship as it has a teasing playful tone, it is as though the voice is protecting herself from intimacy and vulnrability, ‘I wear my mask for warmpth’, the voice is hiding behind her virginity as it protects her and is comforting to her. The narrator writes as if she is scared that if she ‘ope to everyone who taps’ she will lose her mystery which captivates and teases men, to do this the narrator describes layers of clothes, ‘shawl . . cloak, and other wraps’. In the third stanza I get the impression that the narrator is afraid that if she reveals everything to a man they will be dissappointed and become bored, she expresses this through the changing seasons, ‘I do not trust march with its peck of dust’ every month that she describes are rapidly changing like ‘April with its rainbrow crowned brief showers’, although the relationships she could have will be ‘rainbow crowned’ beautiful and exciting, she is afraid that they will only be ‘brief’. The narrator describes how ‘May, whose flowers/ One frost may wither through the sunless hours.’ She is afraid that love will die when the initial passion and excitement is over and the ‘sunless hours’ of the relationship appear. At the end of the poem the narrator decides to continue to tease men, keeping herself wanted and desired but never opeining up to, or allowing herself to be vulnerable with anyone. We begin to wonder if there ever was a secret or whether her ‘secret’ was another device to tease and captivate men; ‘Perhapy my secret I may say,/ or you may guess.’

| Posted on 2009-05-19 | by a guest

.: :.

Have been doing this in English AS and my teacher said that she thought it was something like how in Victorian times you were expected to behave in a certain way, even more so than now, and everyone's life is a secret, she wants the person she's talking to to guess her secret but is also afraid of the reprimands of the time she lived in, she doesnt want to be hurt. So she suggests that she might open up once she knows she can trust him better ... not sure its a really difficult one, i like the idea of the pregnancy, someone in my class wrote about that, my teacher disagreed but she got full marks because she could back it up....

| Posted on 2009-05-19 | by a guest

.: :.

I think this poem is supposed to be ambiguous, i don't think you can decide what the secret actually is. I think Rossetti wrote it for little reason, the original title was "nonsense". It could possibly sum up the ambiguity of all her poems, for example everybody is always trying to guess the meaning behind Goblin Market, but "perhaps there's none". It has a playful tone and teases the reader so that they think there definately is a secret.

| Posted on 2009-05-10 | by a guest

.: :.

Im doing this for AS and this is what i have got. I didnt really think about the pregnancy idea until it was mentioned and i think thats very clever. what i found was that at the same time period that this was happening, and this could just be a coincidence, many of the russian royalty were being murdered and overthrown, however one of them wasn't found, either alesandra or alexandra or something like that, and i got the impression that this woman is in hiding, i know its a woman because she is wearing a shawl. It also mentions russia and snow (the weather in russia). I thought about the summertime (last stanza) and maybe its saying that she will never reveal her secret (in essence she is saying that she will reveal her secret [that she is actually a princess in hiding] when pigs fly, which is never.)

| Posted on 2009-05-07 | by a guest

.: :.

The poem has allusions to Keat's odes to a Nightinale and Autumn in the last stanza which reflect on acts of poetic creativity. Huge subject in Victorian times- read John Ruskin 'On Art and Life'. However, the 'fallen' woman fits in nicely with the reoccuring themes throughout many of Rossetti's poems.

| Posted on 2009-04-30 | by a guest

.: :.

i think that the women in this poem might be pregnant as she is hiding her self, and when she talks about the months that she don't like, maybe thats the time when she doesnot give birth. :)

| Posted on 2009-04-30 | by a guest

.: :.

'I got this poem to discuss at an English interview at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University. I hadn't a clue what to say!'
See! A-levels arent getting any easier, we have to do this (and some other poems by rosetti) for our AS exams. Basically, i've gone on about rhetorical questions...for a page. They draw the reader in, involve them etc. uneven paras make it seem random, strange rhyme increases this yet also gives it structure.

| Posted on 2009-02-05 | by a guest

.: :.

It is a poem about a pregant Victorian woman who must conceal her "secret" for society for fear of reprimand.
"I cannot ope to everyone who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall"
is a metaphor for the constant questions, of which she cannot answer all as people's reactions and gossip will be as the second line suggests. The Winter discussed in the poem suggests both a cold world and the passing of seasons, one should note that nine months is passed from beginning to end to symbolise a pregnancy. The lines, "Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all"
further suggect a pregnancy as the are allowing for the case of a miscarriage.
One could also assume that the man with whom she is speaking is the father or a dear friend, as she writes, "Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess." (which also accentuates the idea of a pregnancy)

| Posted on 2009-02-04 | by a guest

.: :.

see "christina rossetti and the doctrine of reserve" note 41 and the corresponding text

| Posted on 2009-01-06 | by a guest

.: :.

I got this poem to discuss at an English interview at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University. I hadn't a clue what to say!

| Posted on 2008-12-12 | by a guest

.: :.

i get the impression that christina rossetti's poem winter: my secret is a story of, maybe herself or a fictional character, who hides herslf away from lovers and love so she doesnt get hurt think this because she says ' i wear my mask for warmth' and 'wraps and all'
she talks about being astounded by the winds 'buffeting her' is it actually men after a lover ? and s the secret that is hers the secret to her heart which she is not ready to give away to just anyone it has to be perfect and the man she gives it to must also be perfect as in summer.
spring wouldnt work because as she says about the frost and the flowers it is easily detroyed and ruined. so she seeks stability too.

| Posted on 2008-12-11 | by a guest

.: :.

could someone PLEASE analyse this. i dont get it at all. i have a vague idea, but i need to know another opinion. i've looked EVERYWHERE for an analysis. Is this poem a taboo or something? please help. someone out there? Anyone? p^^q

| Posted on 2008-11-25 | by a guest