Talking with the Text : Promises like Pie-Crust by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

 Talking with the Text

To become a more careful reader, the most important and helpful thing you can do is

read, read, and reread, but there are some techniques that can make your reading more

active. The most important point to keep in mind is that your goal is not simply to

identify and list literary elements — although that’s a first step — but to analyze their

effect. In other words, how do the choices the writer makes help to deliver the work’s

message or meaning? We’ll discuss several strategies to help you become a more active

reader, a reader who goes beyond summary to analysis and interpretation.

Think Aloud

As we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the first step to close reading is to start

asking questions. These can be simple ones (such as the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary)

or more complex ones (such as the meaning suggested by figurative language). Since

the goal is to “talk with the text,” a good place to start is by talking to one another.

Pair up with a classmate and take turns reading and thinking out loud; that is, read a

line or a sentence, then stop and comment. See what your partner has to say. Then let him

or her read the next line or sentence, and repeat the process until you’ve finished the text.

Although your comments can go in a number of directions, here are a few suggestions:

• Pose questions about something that confuses you or about a possible interpretation

• Identify unfamiliar vocabulary or allusions

• Note specific stylistic elements and their effect

• Rephrase inverted lines

• Make connections within the poem, or passage of fiction, noting any repetitions,

patterns, or contrasts

Once you’ve gone through the text carefully by reading, talking, questioning, and

analyzing, you have a strong foundation to either contribute to a discussion in a

larger group or prepare to write about the piece.

ACTIVITY •

Think aloud with a partner on the following poem by Christina Georgina

Rossetti. Keep in mind that the title reflects an old English proverb:

“Promises are like pie-crust, made to be broken.”

Promises like Pie-Crust

CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

Promise me no promises,

So will I not promise you;

Keep we both our liberties,

Never false and never true:

Let us hold the die uncast, 5

Free to come as free to go;

For I cannot know your past,

And of mine what can you know?

You, so warm, may once have been

Warmer towards another one; 10

I, so cold, may once have seen

Sunlight, once have felt the sun:

Who shall show us if it was

Thus indeed in time of old?

Fades the image from the glass 15

And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve

For lost liberty again;

If I promised, I believe

I should fret to break the chain: 20

Let us be the friends we were,

Nothing more but nothing less;

Many thrive on frugal fare

Who would perish of excess.

[1861]

This poem “Promises Like Pie-Crust” consists of three 8-line stanzas with a basic ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, although she is not afraid to use half-rhymes (such as promises/liberties and were/fare), there being one such in each stanza.

The poem is not religious in tone but it certainly has a “moral” to it. It is not possible to understand it without being aware of the full meaning of the title, which comes from the well-known saying: “Promises are like pie-crust — Made to be broken”. With that thought in mind, the poem makes perfect sense and there is no need to invoke any other connotations from either pies or crusts!

The poem is clearly an address from one friend to another, with the assumption being that, as the poet is a woman, the other party is a man, but that is not the only possible interpretation. It begins with the line “Promise me no promises”, so that the reader, forewarned with the message of the title, knows immediately that the reason for this plea is that the speaker has absolutely no confidence that any such promise will be kept.

The message of the opening stanza (and indeed of the whole poem) is therefore that the relationship that is envisaged must be conducted on the understanding that both parties are complete equals and that neither will expect anything from the other that they are not willing to give. Individuals must be able, as the third line states, to keep their liberties by not committing themselves to each other.

Something to notice in this poem is that every statement and question that applies to one party is balanced by an equivalent phrase that applies to the other. Thus the second line, following the request for no promises, is “So will I not promise you”, and the stanza ends with “For I cannot know your past” being balanced by “And of mine what can you know?”

The second stanza develops the point made in the closing couplet of the first, in that it posits that “you, so warm” might have known others in the past and “I, so cold” may “once have felt the sun”. The admission that the other party is “warm”, in contrast to the speaker, might seem to break the theme of perfect balance, but that is not really the case, because the end result is the same, namely that without promises and revelations the two are still equal. They are as they are, at the present time and without a past to complicate matters.

The idea of not wanting to know the past, and thus being able to concentrate on the present, is emphasised in this stanza with the rhetorical question: “Who shall show us if it was / Thus indeed in time of old?”, to which the answer is, of course, nobody. Without the enquiry, whether conducted through questions and answers or via the medium of a fortune-teller’s “glass”, the past can be forgotten as though it had never existed.

The word “promise” is not used in the second stanza, but it reappears in the third in a conditional form: “If you promised, you might grieve”. The grieving is for the loss of liberty, which the speaker is desperate to preserve. Again, this is expressed as applying to both parties with the balancing: “If I promised, I believe / I would fret …”

The conclusion is a plea for the status quo, namely that the pair should remain as friends, “Nothing more but nothing less”, which echoes the fourth line of the first stanza: “Never false but never true”. The final couplet leaves the reader with the poem’s “moral”, which is that: “Many thrive on frugal fare / Who would perish of excess”. The expression of this thought in the third person is significant, though, in that the speaker cannot bring herself to express a personal opinion but must rely on what she believes applies to the “many”.

The whole poem, therefore, comes across as the expression of emotional coldness and sterility. It is all about what must not happen, because the pain of making and breaking promises, and of sharing past experiences, could be too great to bear. The message seems to be that one’s sanity can only be preserved in a relationship if one holds back and maintains one’s equality with the other party by giving away the bare minimum in terms of commitment.

Or is it? The idea that someone would advocate such a course, for fear of being hurt, must strike the reader as being close to absurd. This reader takes the view that what Christina Rossetti is doing here is pointing to that very absurdity. This is not how lovers behave with each other. Falling in love is all about taking emotional risks and playing with fire. Promises will be made, and of course most of them will be broken. But so what?

On the face of it, this is a poem about being friends and nothing more. However, the very fact that the poet is expressing her concerns about what might happen if promises are made shows that the thought has crossed her mind. She knows that she is on the brink of making a commitment, and she appreciates that all efforts to avoid doing so, by balancing all the pros and cons and sticking to preserving her “liberty”, are artificial devices that sound ridiculous when rationalized in the way they are here.

This is therefore a poem that conveys a very different message to the one that, at first reading, might be assumed. Christina Rossetti may talk about thriving on “frugal fare”, but surely that is far from her real desire. The clue comes in the fourth line; without promises being made and broken a couple may indeed never be false, but neither will their love ever be true.