Wilde and Rossetti critics

An Ideal Husband and poetry anthology

Robert Chiltern contains a “Darwinian element of the competitive master animal”

John Sloan on Robert Chiltern’s competitiveness

The “dignified but decadent” upper classes did not care about “conventional morality”

Pearsall on Victorian moralities

‘An Ideal Husband’ hints at social and political corruption, but ultimately withdrawals into the traditional ideas of men and women

Philip Cohen on how Wilde almost lets ‘An Ideal Husband’ shake gender roles

an “insincere society that refuses to acknowledge its reliance on secrecy and masks”

Neal on the deception of Victorian Society

Lady Chiltern is “priggish and naive”

Katherine Worth on Lady Chiltern’s self righteous morality

Robert Chiltern’s “Machiavellian justification in his own reckless ambition for power and wealth”

Harold Bloom on Robert Chiltern’s corrupt drive for power

Characters regard each other as “pure representations”

Harold Bloom on ‘An Ideal Husbands’ idealism

The comparisons to art suggest the cultivated artifice of their behaviour

Anne Vairty on the link between aestheticism and insincerity in ‘An Ideal Husband’

she does not objectify and women, and “she does not objectify men”

Bocher on how Rosetti can subvert gender stereotypes

“God is always present” either in the “foreground” or the “background”

Bocher on Rossetti’s God overtones

“full of the spirit, though not technically of devotion”

George Landow on Rossetti’s religious themes, and how she is a “didactic” poet

Rossetti’s focus is not fulfilling “earthly love”, rather “renunciation”

Anthony Harrison on Rossetti prioritising rejecting earthly temptation

after Highgate House, “she must have believed a fallen woman need not forever be a social outcast”

D’Amico on Rossetti’s sympathy towards fallen women

‘Goblin Market’ is designed to convey “the need for an alternative social order”

McGann on Rossetti almost being a radicalist

the male Victorian patriarchy prevented Rossetti becoming the feminist idol she had the potential to be

Gilbert and Gubar on Rossetti being restricted in becoming a feminist

‘Goblin Market’ has “radically rewritten the Fall of Eve” and “includes more than a hint that male gender oppression can be interpreted as original sin”

Lynda Palazzo on male original sin

Rossetti’s views are not necessarily “radical” but are “often questioning, challenging and potential subversive”

Simon Avery on Rossetti’s views provoking questions

Rossetti “predominantly expresses an emotional love - and not just a sexualised love”

Bocher on Rossetti’s portrayal of love

Rossetti gives a “vibrant voice to the female experience”

Mold on Rossetti projecting women’s voices

‘Goblin Market’s deeper root is “sexual frustration”

Touche on love, temptation and social convention in GM

as well as the forbidden fruit referring to female sexuality, it could also be symbolic of “female education and knowledge”

Scholl on female transgressions in GM