Gabriel Rossetti was born in London, May 12th 1828, He was born the son, whose father was an Italian patriot and a political refugee, his mother was born and raised in England. Seeing that he grew up in both cultures he spoke fluently in both languages. The environment he grew up in was a very cultural and political. From the year 1836 to 1841, he attended King’s College Academy. He studied drawing in a Royal College in 1845. He later persuaded it and made friend with William Hollman and John Everrel Millais, they all became very close friends. When he painted he took his inspiration from Shakespeare, Geethe, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Edger Allan Poe and later in 1847 William Blake. In 1860 Rossetti Married Elizabeth Diddal, she was also a writer and painter when they met ten years ago. But at this time she was an invalid, she carried his child for nine months, the baby was still born and she died of a laudanum overdose. Laudanum is an alcoholic solution containing morphine, prepared from opium and formerly used as a narcotic painkiller. In 1869 he wrote the Orchard-pit a little after his wife died, He then went into a deep depression and had a lot of guilt towards the situation. He eventually was brought to Scotland where he tried taking his own life. Eventually he recovered, but was never the same. In the year 1882 Sir Dante Gabriel Rossetti died on April the 9th (1882-04-09) in Birching ton-on-sea, Kent, England.
“The Orchard-Pit” describes the biblical imagery around the story of the Garden of Eden with Adam
and Eve. The concept behind Adam and Eve was the female mate who was deceived by the devil in the
form of a serpent, which convinced her to eat from the tree of good and evil, making her mate eat of the
fruit too. The orchard-pit has a strong symbolic reference for Rossetti’s life because the
orchard and the pit mean new beginnings and with that came new fruit to new season, while the other shows
death. This title is very strongly worded because Rossetti’s wife got pregnant for him but in the process of
birth the child was still born and his wife died of a Laudanum overdose. The speaker is trying to explain
love can turn something so delightfully, peaceful and very harmonious can also turn into something so gut
wrenching and depressing in a matter of seconds. I believe that in these two lines explain his life with his
wife, and how he fell in love with her, but she eventually dies giving birth. “Piled deep below the screening
apple-branch, they lie with bitter apples in their hands”(1-2) first stanza. I believe that the bitter apple could
symbolize the death the baby in real life. Even if I can't prove that I know symbolism goes a long
way. when Adam and Eve ate from the tree the fruit symbolized was an apple. I think that the apple
symbolized the soon death that would come upon them in the near future. I think that the apple is in some
comparison with Rossetti's unborn child because as similar as the apple symbolizes death, his child was still
born and after death came upon his wife, soon behold in the end Rossetti tries to take his only but fails. But he eventually dies from kidney failure in Kent, England with a broken heart.
In Rossetti’s life it shows how he fell in love with his wife, they made love through sex. “This in
my dreams is shown me; and her hair crosses my lips and draws my burning breath, her song spreads golden
wings upon the air, life's eyes are gleaming from her forehead fair and from her breasts the ravishing eyes
of Death” (third stanza) when he and his wife made love there was a burning desire of him having a child
with her and that didn’t turn out the way he wanted it. The concept I’m trying to make is that there are always opposites in our life, while Rossetti’s own was death. Soon he was consumed with dead through his
wife and became so depressed his heart soon turned cold. Oh how he must have longed for his wife to come
back into his life, he must have wished he could have touched her one more time before she died. I know
it’s hard to lose a loved one, especially a spouse. Just imagine every day you see that person, you kiss and hug
them and shower them with love and joy and then one day that was all gone, Its’ like a physical memory
gone with the wind. When Rossetti lost his wife to an overdose of laudanum, he also lost the child she was to conceive for him. In the process I think he lost his soul, when she died it went with her and he’s been longing to see her again.
In the last stanza of the poem it states:
“My love I call her, and she loves me well:
But I love her as in the maelstrom's cup
The whirled stone loves the leaf inseparable
That clings to it round all the circling swell,
And that the same last eddy swallows up.”
In the stanza there are a few symbols, from lines two to five shows the description of a whirl pool with a
stone swirling around in the whirl pool with a leaf stock to it, the leaf never comes off the stone while it gets
swallowed up by the whirl pool. In Dante Gabriel Rossetti's life he went through a lot of achievements and
mostly lost in life. In stanza five, line one states " My love I call her, and she loves me well" I think it states
how Rossetti's wife loved him very much but when the poem said my love I call her, it doesn't state a reply.
When his wife died it looked like he wanted to hear her voice all over again but he never heard it, only in a
memory. In lines two to five it strongly shows the caparison of his life and the symbols he used because I
think in his mind, body and soul he adored his wife and he even tried to take his own life to be with her in
the after life. I think he thought that if he can't be with her in this life maybe that after life. This is why its so
similar to the rock and the leave in the stanza.
In the poem Orchard-Pit which was written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, it shows the pleasant concoction of a man who thought of himself as a brilliant person whose works was fantastic in writing and painting . it was heart breaking how he lost his wife so early in life. I think you go through things negatively in life to get stronger but I've learned that everyone is different and some people can't take certain things in your life. I've understand that people are all formed differently, they also have different personalities, structures, hearts, souls and they also have different abilities of cooping and understanding things in their life. I consider myself as a strong person because I belief that I have the will to help other and the ability to live my life and not destroy it. I grew up in a very Christian home where your body is your temple from god. I've been thought that god only lent you this body to harbor the spirit that lies in it. I believe that when a person doesn't grow up with curtain beliefs that they choose to take their own life. In Rossetti's life story he believes that if he killed himself that he'd be with his wife. what he went through was very tragic but understandable, may he rest in peace and may he see his beloved wife again.
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