CYNTHIA SCHEINBERGthe lilies take no thought and no speech. In her revision of Matthew 6:
27-30, each of the flowers makes an intricate statement of religious faith.
It is not that these flowers-cum-women reject the role of the intellect per se.
Instead they use thought to create innovative links between the biblical text
and their own feminine lives. Rossetti emphasizes that the perception of
their intellectual passivity is the fault of an audience that fails to "hear" the
preaching of the flowers. Indeed, the verb "preach" offers a subtle
transformation of biblical authority. Whereas in the parable it is Jesus who
"preach[es]" about the flowers, here Rossetti transfers agency to the flowers
themselves, who repeatedly "say," "whisper," and "Tell." Linking their
identity to Christian narrative, the "rose" and "poppy" call on images of
the "thorn" or "scorn" and thus mirror Jesus's experiences on earth. If
passive in action - neither "spinning" nor "toiling" - Rossetti's flowers are
nevertheless remarkable for their obvious intellectual consideration of their
own existence in light of Scripture. The larger point is that the flowers
can be misread unless they offer their own readings of their spiritual
significance.
Rossetti's most complex argument about the role of women's religious
authority and women's intellect emerges in her reference to the "violets" at
the end of the first stanza. Here the question of what the flowers actually
make marks a clear divergence from the Bible. If the violets neither "toil"
nor "spin," they nonetheless make "shade" and produce "fragrance," as
well as give "humble lessons." These lines add to the biblical parable the
idea not only that flowers do in fact make things but also that the things
that they have made remain ignored by "men." "[M]en," the subject of the
sentence, only "scent" the flowers, "tak[ing] no heed / Of humble lessons
we would read" (emphasis mine). This last phrase, with its deceptive
conditional tense, proves central to meaning of the whole poem, since it
implies some hindrance to the violets' (and thus women's) ability to read
for themselves. Indeed, the phrase suggests that the violets know the lessons
that they would utter if they could. Moreover, it carries the idea that they
"would read" Scripture for themselves if they had an audience of "men"
who would authorize their "humble lessons." The manifest irony here is
that the poem itself represents a woman poet's interpretation of Scripture.
By displacing these meanings onto the flowers, Rossetti offers a subtle
commentary on her own distinctly female poem - one in which "men" will
most likely "take no heed."
Once Rossetti has made this contentious comment, however, the poem
returns to safer ground by extending its message beyond the limits of
gender difference. Her final references to the "grass" and "lichen and moss
and sturdy weed" extricate her from the link between flowers and women.
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