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. L
audanum 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.
In the entire poem their are symbols with different meanings. The tile itself starts it off it's name is the Orchard-
Pit. In the first stanza there are apples, hands and bones. second stanza: hidden pit, apple tree, magic hour and hands. third
stanza: hair, lips, burning breath, golden wings, beast that ravishing eyes of death. Fourth stanza: dried up channel. fifth
stanza: maelstrom's cup, leaf with stone stuck to it. In the entire poem the words apple, hands, bones and death are all
mentioned more than once.
I believe that this poem symbolizes the tragic life story of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In some of the symbols it
shows the lost in his life. 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 his wife and child passing away. “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. also in “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,
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.
