Dante Gabriel Rossetti first published “The Woodspurge” in its final stage under the section “Songs” in his 1870 collection The House of Life. With the publication of 1881’s Poems: A New Edition, “The Woodspurge” was removed from its previous section and re-categorized under the section “Lyrics.”
The actual composition of the poem is usually traced back to 1856 when Rossetti was undergoing extreme emotional anxiety due to a series of delays and postponements of his planned marriage to Elizabeth Siddal, the inspiration for the model in his sister Christina Rossetti’s poem “In an Artist’s Studio.” Among the people who believe the poem was composed in this year is the poet's own brother, William Michael Rossetti. The hard evidence for this date as the period of composition is somewhat shaky, but generally accepted. On the other hand, not even a shaky premise has been forwarded to explain the actual circumstances behind the extreme grief which the narrator in the poem describes. Whatever the cause, that grief inspired the poet to take a walk, and on this walk, he contemplates the titular wood spurge, a plant that grows in the shade of trees.
Not that such background information is necessary. The point of the poem is not the cause of the emotional turmoil, but the attempt to escape from it by studying nature in its most minute detail. Such is a recurring theme of Pre-Raphaelite painting as well as Pre-Raphaelite poetry. Through precise descriptions of a natural object, the speaker seems to seek refuge from profoundly unpleasant emotions—just like how Pre-Raphaelite painters revealed certain details visually to show the truth of the natural world rather than merely seeking to portray its beauty.
Catherine Maxwell refers to "The Woodspurge" in "'Devious Symbols': Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Purgatorio" as "a favorite of anthologists and a perennial choice for inclusion in practical criticism papers." Literary academics have written about "The Woodspurge" extensively, focusing on the symbolism (or lack thereof), the parsed-down language, what the poem tells us about Rossetti himself, and more. Of Rossetti's poems, "The Woodspurge," is one of his best-loved and most well-known. "The Woodspurge" certainly was not as controversial as "Jenny," a poem about a prostitute, which was published in the same 1870 volume, and which tarnished Rossetti's literary reputation to an extent. "The Woodspurge" is also a good poem for new readers of Victorian poetry, another factor contributing to the fact that "it is one of the pieces by which the work of this still underread poet is best known" (Maxwell).
Some readers of "The Woodspurge," including Rossetti's own brother, William Michael Rossetti, suggest that the speaker of the poem is related to Rossetti himself. William Michael asserted: "this 'occasional poem' expresses, I have no doubt, some actual moment, in my brother's life, of distressful experience and harrowing thought. I do not know what it may have been—perhaps some crisis of Miss Siddal's ill-health." As a general rule of thumb, literary analysts try to avoid assuming that the speaker of a poem is the same as the poet who composed it. However, imagining Rossetti as the speaker of this poem heightens the emotional stakes and adds a somber note to an already dark poem.
Recent criticism has suggested, however, that "The Woodspurge" was actually inspired by a botany textbook. Catherine Maxwell argues that that particular botany textbook is Gerard's Herball (1597). She details what one would have found in that text during Rossetti's time: "The Herball, which is the most important work of its kind in English, containing line woodcuts of the many varieties of plants discussed, devotes a complete chapter to illustration and description of the group named the spurges. The ninth type of spurge listed is the woodspurge." This reading of "The Woodspurge" opens up a symbolic level of analysis different from the one that would assume the speaker to be the poet himself. The woodspurge can be understood as an object of study with cultural, scientific, and even medicinal resonances.
Other critics read "The Woodspurge" as a study of intense emotion. For example, scholar Stanley Holberg argues in "Rossetti and the Trance" that Rossetti's motivation in writing this poem is "to present, in terms of the operation of the senses, the psychological effect of intense feeling." Whether or not the speaker is Rossetti and he is cataloging his experience, he was inspired by a botany textbook, or he simply wanted to document grief, "The Woodspurge" opens itself up to multiple readings because of its directness and simplicity. The fact that it remains a well-known poem today speaks to the power of Rossetti's language and images in this short piece.
