christina rossetti - context

singing bird

singing bird

• often featured in Romantic poetry

• used to symbolise the poet

• embodies the poet's idealisation of their art

• Percy Shelley wrote in 'A Defence of Poetry' that 'a poet is a nightingale' (LINK: A Birthday)

Romantic poets attitudes towards beauty/nature

• strong emphasis on the celebration of beauty found in nature

• poems often conveyed a religious devotion to the natural wold in opposition to an increasingly industrialised one (LINK: A Birthday

PRB attitudes towards medieval period

• interested in this period because it was a time before mass industrialisation (LINK: A Birthday)

hair

• having your hair down was viewed as provocative and a sign of promiscuity in the Victorian era (LINK: An Apple-Gathering

'The Girlhood of Mary Virgin'

• painting by Dante Gabriel

• depicts 2 lilies to allude to the innocence and purity of Mary

• accompanied by 2 sonnets which also idealise Mary and what she stands for (LINK: An Apple-Gathering)

flowers

• flowers could be used as a literary symbol of sexual attractiveness in the Victorian era e.g. Tess's mouth described as a 'peony' (LINK: An Apple-Gathering)

tree of knowledge

• biblical allusion to the 'apple tree' reminiscent of the Tree of Knowledge

• CR may be criticising those who ignore the Biblical commandment to love thy neighbour "my neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass" (lINK: An Apple-Gathering)

prostitution

• 8,600 prostitutes in London in 1856

• DGR wrote the poem 'Jenny' from the perspective of a male interacting with a prostitute

• increased use of flowers as a means of communication, with apple blossom representing intoxicating love, sensuality and fertility (LINK: An Apple-Gathering)

lyric poem

• in classical Greece, the lyric poem was to be sung, accompanied by a lyre (similar to a harp)

• lyre is often seen to originate in suffering - Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote 'A Musical Instrument' in which the God, Pan, tears a reed to create a lyre-like instrument (LINK: Echo)

echo and narcissus

• the nymph, Echo, falls in love with Narcissus, but she is unable to tell him of her own love, instead she can only echo the ends of his words

• narcissus rejects her and falls in love with his own reflection in a stream

• CR also uses water imagery throughout the poem (LINK: Echo)

Dante

• CR influenced by works of Dante

• in his Divine Comedy, the poet travels to the underworld, guided by the poet Virgil

• while he is there, he meets his beloved, Beatrice, who leads him to the gates of paradise

• CR draws upon a similar image in 'Echo' through the meeting of the lovers at the gates of paradise (LINK: Echo)

door imagery

• often featured in CR's work

• in 'Winter: My Secret', the speaker says she must not "ope to everyone who taps"

• the door is also depicted as the entrance to heaven in 'Despised and Rejected' (LINK: Echo)

Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor

• english folk ballad which depicts the story of tragic love and rivalry, like in 'Maude Clare'

• Lord Thomas is in love with Fair Eleanor, who has little property, but instead he marries a hideous maid with riches

• at their wedding, Fair Eleanor attends, and in a jealous rage she is stabbed by the maid

• both 'Maude Clare' and the ballad engage with a rivalry between women and the dilemma of a husband (LINK: Maude Clare)

the board

• table upon which meals are shared

• in a Victorian home, it is perceived to be the place where communion and generosity can be found

• the idea of blessing the board would be providing food for a family to enjoy

• Maude therefore places herself at their heart of their domestic life and this stands in the way of their union (LINK: Maude Clare)

'Take Your Son Sir'

• painting by Ford Madox Brown

• depicts a woman who seems to be asking her husband/a man to take responsibility for their illegitimate child (LINK: Maude Clare. Like how Maude returns to remind Thomas of their past relationship)

'memento mori'

• CR influenced by Romantic poetry, largely built on the tenement of 'memento mori' meaning 'remember that you will die' (LINK: Remember)

soul sleep

• CR believed in the idea of 'soul sleep'

• it said that you fell asleep the day before you died

• liminal space between one state and another

• Catholics believed in 3 realms that souls go to after death - heaven, hell and purgatory

• purgatory was a place to receive cleansing before heaven

• John Henry Newman gave a sermon called 'The Intermediate State' in which he argued against the idea of purgatory, and instead found evidence in the Bible that Christians remain 'in a state of rest' in a 'paradise' yet not heaven (LINK: Remember. Implication that the speaker may need cleansing through 'darkness and corruption')

darkness and corruption

also a term used in the bible to refer to the physical decay of death as well as moral decline (LINK: Remember)

prayers

• whilst Roman Catholic tradition teaches that prayers should be offered to people who have died, offering prayers for the dead was not encouraged in the Anglican Church (LINK: Remember. 'it will be late to counsel then or pray')

CR engagements

• first engaged to James Collinson in 1849

• broken off in 1850

• rejected Charles Cayley in 1856

shakespeare's sonnet 7

• 'Remember' shares similarities to Shakespeare's Sonnet 7

• the speaker also anticipates their death

• however Shakespeare begins with the desire for the loved one to 'no longer mourn', which seems to be the view that Rossetti eventually reaches at the volta in 'Remember' but contrasts her initial thoughts (LINK: Remember)

PRB natural imagery

• exploited natural imagery to give their paintings a timeless, unspecified setting

• e.g. in Proserpina by DGR, the classical goddess is depicted holding a pomegranate which represents her sexuality (LINK: 'The World' also has a biblical or mythological settting and omits any reference to contemporary life)

genesis

• eve eats an apple from the tree of knowledge, thereby damning humanity (LINK: The World. CR takes part in the christian tradition wherein women are shown as the representatives of sin that tempt men)

highgate penitentiary

• CR volunteered there to help put fallen women on a socially acceptable path (LINK: The World)

the world - form

• form as a Petrarchan sonnet allows CR to subvert the expected image of the ideal lover

• perhaps criticising petrarchan conventions and suggests that the perfect love described in sonnets was just a mask for desire (LINK: The World)

moon symbolism

• symbol of femininity but also of madness

• Sappho wrote a poem titled 'The Moon' in which she likens a woman's face to the moon

• CR influenced by Sappho - she even wrote a poem titled after her (LINK: The World)

PRB aims (nature)

• aim of 'sympathising with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in art' as set out in their founding meeting (LINK: May. CR uses nature to express emotions, showing their similar stylistic tendencies)

loss of youth and fertility

• CR influenced by female poets such as Letitia Elizabeth Landon's 'The Marriage Vow', which lamented the loss of a young woman's aspirations after being married

• she wrote that marriage calls for a 'dark future' (LINK: May)

roses and geraniums

• common in English gardens and households

• John Ruskin used the English garden as a metaphor for female domesticity in his essay "Of Queen's Gardens" (LINK: Some ladies. flowers allude to the old ladies' adherence to domestic modes)

victorian crisis of masculinity

• men who showed feminine qualities were hounded and assumed homosexual

• standards of masculinity were unrealistically high, championing strength and athleticism (LINK: Some ladies. 'Man with tassels on his back)

angel in the house

• poem by coventry patmore

• 1854

suffragists

• group of feminists that believed in peaceful, constitutional campaign methods to win the vote for women

• 32 identified anti-feminist movements throughout England during Victorian period

• they opposed feminists who were perceived as disrupting the standard way of life

• CR also believed that the idea of a woman's subordination to the man was an inherent and valuable part of society due to her strong religious beliefs (LINK: Some ladies. 'woman in the great coat like a sack / Towering above her sex with horrid height'. woman could represent a suffragist, because of her typical attire and the illusion that she is reaching beyond her limits)

some ladies publication

• published in CR's novella in 1850, focusing on the life of 15 y/o Maude, who wrote the poem in a competition with her friend Agnes, who represented the Angel in the House figure

• poem therefore has a playful, youthful and radical perspective

PRB meanings

• PRB used art to convey meanings which they wanted to be 'read' by observers who carefully noted the details of each picture

• Millais' 'Isabella' depicted people feasting (LINK: At Home. Perhaps the friends in the poem reflect the PRB; CR was linked to them but not allowed as a full member)

edgar allen poe

• believed dying women were an object of aestheticism to inspire his poetry

• wrote “the death [of] a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world”

• CR seems to respond to this through the speakers of several poems who suggest how difficult and impossible the act of speaking up in suffering is, as her female speakers are often dead, and their voices come from beyond the grave (LINK: At Home)

ghosts

• CR interested in ghosts

• she wrote a poem titled 'The Hour and the Ghost' which told the story of a ghost competing with a bridegroom for his bride's attention

• due to her immense devotion to her faith she steered away from this for fear of sin, instead contemplating both the isolation and distance from loved ones that death brings, and the reward of Paradise in heaven (LINK: At Home)

william dodsworth

• CR influenced by her sermons which focused on Jesus' Second Coming and Judgement Day (LINK: Up-hill)

door reference in up-hill

• reference to Revelation in the New Testament, where Jesus is shown to be a friend ready to share with those who ask for him

• the door refers to the acceptance of Jesus in the human heart and in 'Up-hill', the knocking at the door is the traveller but the responsibility for creating an environment in which the door is ready to be opened lies within the individual

the pilgrim's progress

• book by John Bunyan

• depicts the journey of Christian from his home city, the 'City of Destruction' to the 'Celestial City'

• regarded as a seminal aspect of Christian media (LINK: Up-hill. Speaker's journey is reminiscent of Christian's)

tractarian doctrine of 'reserve'

• restraint from revealing truths that do not translate themselves into the mortal world

• they believed the natural world was a suppressed expression of divinity (LINK: Up-hill. Poem's reluctance to explicitly describe the journey of life)

what did william (her brother) hear CR say about goblin market

that she did not mean anything profound by the poem

opium dens

• often situated in port towns, an example of a 'liminal space' as a space of transition and impermanence

• opium was largely marketed to women as 'women's friends' supposedly to help with problems such as menstruation, childbirth, depression, fainting fits and 'hysteria'

goblin market original title

• 'a peep at the goblins'

• DG suggested the new title

• shifted the attention away from curiosity towards a focus on consumerism and the idea of buying and selling

fallen women

• victorian concept that a loss of virginity tainted a woman's marriage potential

• fallen women were depicted in a negative light in paintings and literature, e.g. George Frederic Watts' 'Found Drowned'

• CR's work in the Highgate Penitentiary would have made her sympathetic to women like this (LINK: Twice. Speaker could be a fallen woman who was rejected by a man, perhaps when she gave her heart, she also gave herself sexually and now must turn to God to find redemption)

men as noble and chivalrous

• e.g. in Tennyson's 'Morte d'Arthur' (LINK: Twice. CR subverting this by describing the faults in male lovers)

christ church, albany street

• CR attended

• centre of the Anglo-Catholic movement in London

• william dodsworth sermons about the necessity of preparing for judgement day through maintaining religious faith and righteous conduct (LINK: Piteous My Rhyme Is)

edward pusey

• spoke about the 'wickedness of sin, the worthlessness of earth and the blessedness of heaven' (LINK: Piteous My Rhyme Is. Allusion to the trivial nature of human existence in her references to 'time is but a span'. Reflects her belief in the 'worthlessness' of earth)

louisa may alcott

• wrote 'The Mother Moon' in 1856 which depicted a benevolent and maternal moon observing the earth (LINK: A Helpmeet for Him)

the face of the deep - gender

• CR wrote that 'society may be personified as a human... right hand is man... left hand is woman; in one sense equal, in another sense unequal"

anti-suffrage petition

• in 1888 CR signed an anti-suffrage petition

• but her anti-feminist views were prevalent when she was younger too due to her religious faith

• her condemnation of sexual equality is born out of her religious orthodoxy

• despite these beliefs, she still viewed women as occupying an important and valuable role seen through the semantics of strength in 'A Helpmeet for Him' (LINK: A Helpmeet for Him)

roundel

• poetic form developed by Algernon Charles Swinburne

• Swinburne's poetry viewed as similar to CR sue to his use of sound and imagery to shape meaning, despite the two addressing completely polarised subject matter in their poems

• in 1883, Swinburne's compilation of roundels 'A Century of Roundels' was published and he dedicated it to CR (LINK: A Helpmeet for Him)

floriography

• language of flowers

• 'le language des Fleurs' published in 1819 popularised a code in which upper and middle classes could interpret and use (LINK: Passing and Glassing)

vanity

• often represented as a naked woman, sometimes seated or reclining in a couch often holding a mirror (LINK: Passing and Glassing. looking glass in the poem could be a link to this idea as PRB also interested in the idea of vanity and transience)

grave's disease

• CR diagnosed with this in 1871 but her looks had started to decline significantly before then

• she had to confront her ageing at a rapid pace so the poem could be CR's way of coming to terms with her loss of beauty (LINK: Passing and Glassing)

older women in literature

• often mocked or excluded in Victorian literature, e.g. Miss Havisham in Dickens' Great Expectations (LINK: Passing and Glassing)

book of ruth

• told the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, who experience immense hardship and loss, but they remain unwaveringly faithful to God

• eventually, he takes care of them and they have a happy ending (LINK: Memory. similar resolutions - speaker looks forward to the paradise that will be granted to her in the after-life as a result of her faith)

spinsterhood

• unusual for victorian women to remain unmarried

• Elizabeth BB had to use illness as an excuse to retreat to a room at the top of her father's house and write poetry, as academics were seen as belonging in the male sphere (LINK: Memory. It is clear that the speaker has to bear the weight of her decision alone, perhaps due to the social isolation CR may have felt as a result of her choices)

john keble

• described poetry as a scaffold in which religious feeling could be both released and contained, as too much feeling could cause imbalance

• as a child, CR diagnosed with 'religious mania' and known to have a passionate temper - perhaps she used poetry as a form of expression which enabled her to repress her emotions and prevent the outbursts of her childhood (LINK: Memory. P1 of the poem written in a period of religious crisis suggesting that this was her method of dealing with it)

idea of reserve in other CR poems

• 'Winter: My Secret'

• focuses on the implications and consequences of an event but not the event itself

• ambiguity maintained (LINK: Memory)

the face of the deep - inequality

• CR wrote that england is 'full of luxuries and thronged by stinted poor'

• recognised the country's preoccupation with wealth, power and influence (LINK: A Christmas Carol. sentiment echoed as she says whilst she doesn't have anything material to gift the baby, she will give him her heart)

devotional works

• CR produced 6 volumes of devotional prose between 1874 and 1893

• 5 were published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

• these writings celebrate the lives and faith of famous Christians throughout history, and the role of the Apostolic Church (LINK: A Christmas Carol. poem is a reflection of how CR frequently incorporated stories and events from the Bible into her literary works)

darwin's 'The Descent of Man'

• published a year prior to 'A Christmas Carol'

• poem could be seen as a retelling of religion and origin story in response to the popularisation of science

dante's inferno

• in the 9th circle of Hell, Satan sits in the fourthring, where the worst sinners are punished

• these condemned souls are frozen to ice completely unable to move or speak (LINK: What Would I Give. CR makes use of the idea of disconnection in conjunction with isolation)

ezekiel 36

• "I will give you a new heart and pur a new spirit in you. I will remove you from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

• (LINK: What Would I Give. Both show sin considered in conjunction with a heart of stone)

what would i give - structure

• 3 stanzas could represent the Holy Trinity

• a relationship with the HT allows for a 'heart of flesh'

• father was revealed as the creator, Lord, Father and Judge; the son lived on earth amongst humans; and God the Holy Spirit filled them with new life

CR religious breakdown

• 1857 over beliefs that she was not worthy of Jesus' sacrifice

• she also suffered a depression after the death of her friend Adelaide Proctor, at the time What Would I Give was written

the face of the deep publication

• CR inserts prayers and poems because she could not always express her thoughts as well in informative prose

• encourages Christians to redeem their time before Christ's return (LINK: As froth on the face of the deep - published in the face of the deep)

frances polidori

• CR's mother

• played a large role in influencing their religious beliefs

• she devoted most of her time to teaching her daughters as the sons went to boarding school

• she often posed for DG's paintings, e.g. 'The Girlhood of Mary Virgin' (LINK: Our mothers)

anglican sisterhoods

• revival of religious sisterhoods during Rossetti's lifetime

• from 1841 to 1855 many religious orders for women developed

• CR's sister, Maria, joined the Society of All Saints, an anglican order for women, when she was 46 (LINK: Our mothers)

babylon

• city of Babylon mentioned several times in the Old Testament in female terms

• 'babylon' as a word is used symbolically to refer to the materialistic culture of the Victorian age

• many scholars believe 'babylon' is a metaphor for the pagan Roman Empire at the time it persecuted Christians (LINK: Babylon the Great)

Edward Pusey

• preacher at Christ Church - spoke about ‘the wickedness of sin, the worthlessness of earth and the blessedness of heaven’

• (LINK: Piteous my rhyme is)

The Face of the Deep

• CR’s last major project, containing over 200 poems

• CR warns against curiosity and provides a devotion to God

• (LINK: As froth on the face of the deep - published in ‘The Face of the Deep’ - CR sometimes used poetry to project her thoughts as she found it easier to do so than in prose - links to Tractarian doctrine of reserve)

Jude 1:13 “Raging waves of the sea…

… foaming out their own shame.”

• this is a continuation of the description of false teachers, and the raging waves refer to the instability of their tempers and the lack of control over passion

• the foam refers to their outrageous behaviour and their own filthiness to their disgrace

• (LINK: As froth on the face of the deep)

Genesis “and the earth was without form, …

and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

• CR alludes to the state of the universe prior to the Creation: a wasteland and a great void

hand imagery

• used in DG’s poetry to symbolise the first manifestations of love

• (LINK: Remember)

‘darkness and corruption’

• term often used in the bible to refer to the physical decay of death as well as a moral decline

• (LINK: Remember)

lyric poem

• in classical greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre - stringed instrument similar to a harp

• in 1862 (same year Echo) was published, EBB wrote a poem titled ‘A Musical Instrument’ in which she describes how the classical God Pan created an instrument for himself

• lyre is often seen to originate in violence and suffering

• linked to this is the suffering or struggle that frequently prompts a writer to compose a lyric poem to express their feelings

• (LINK: Echo)

‘The Princes: Tears, Idle Tears’

• lyric poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

• emotionally intense meditation on the passage of time and the loss of friends and loved ones

• Tennyson wrote the poem after a visit to Tintern Abbey, near the grave of a dear friend

• (LINK: Echo - both convey emotion through the imagery of tears

‘The Human Seasons’

• poem by John Keats

• CR influenced by Romantic poets - they explored the fleeting nature of life through nature

• (LINK: May)

‘To My Mother’

• poem by Rossetti written before ‘Our mothers’

• she recited it on her mother’s birthday