Rossetti Critical Views (AO5)

Sullivan - worldly existence

“[rossetti's] hope for meaning and clarity and completeness must be deferred until she can escape from the self-destructive cycles of worldly existence”

Simon Avery - No Thank You John

“by rejecting a potential suitor, the speaker asserts the right to say 'no'. ... the suitor isn't given a voice, showing the power dynamic as she turns his argument against him”

Simon Avery - radical

“her views may not be 'radical' as such, but they are usually far from conservative and often question, challenging and potentially subversive”

Lynda Palazzo - fall of eve

“Rossetti has radically rewritten the Fall of Eve in terms of the social and spiritual abuse of women which she sees around her and includes more than a hint that male gender oppression be interpreted as original sin”

D'Amico - magdelene

“we can assume that since Rossetti [worked at SMMPFFW] she must have believed a fallen woman need not forever be a social outcast”

Bocher - presence of god

2God is always present, is always there - sometimes in the "foreground, sometimes in the background”

Kathleen Blake - woman in love

“Rossetti makes the woman in love the emblem of radical insufficiency and dependence upon external dispensation”

Bocher - love

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

Touché - longings

“longings and cravings are ever present in Christina Rossetti's poetry, especially in poems such as 'Goblin Market', whose deeper root was sexual frustration”

Scholl - forbidden fruit

“Rossetti alludes to the traditional discourse of forbidden fruit and the biblical account of the Fall. She does so both to challenge the decidedly patriarchal perception of women within Victorian culture ... and also to reconstruct the Christian idea of redemption”

Bocher - love of god

“Rossetti's love for god always trumps the love of another human”

Bocher - religious influence

“religious view affect everything she wrote, regardless of topic”

Simon Avery - religious justification of patriarchy

“at times she used the Biblical idea of woman's subordination to man as reason for maintaining the status quo”

Simon Avery - religious doubt

“Rossetti's poems repeatedly struggle with religious doubt, frustration and fear”

Escobar - fallen women

“If a woman fell she fell utterly”

Simon Avery - position in marriage

“Rossetti examines women's position in society through consideration of the institution of marriage”

Simon Avery - Maude Clare

"Barely able to stutter Maude Clares name, a clear critique of dominant masculinity"

Simon Avery - From the Antique

"so wearying is the position of women that annihilation is preferable since this would enable escape from gender expectations and imposed identities"

Simon Avery - NTYJ

'What this poem asserts is the woman's right to say "no" and to claim independence and agency for herself'

"women's choice and determination can be felt in the humorous but forceful 'no thank you John'"

Simon Avery - Uphill

"The difficult journey of 'up hill' is as much a journey to religious understanding as anything else"

Simon Avery - Role in society

“Rossetti's speakers demonstrate an awareness of social and political expectations which define acceptable roles for women“

Simon Avery - Rossetti’s Characters

“Her characters encourage women to claim independence and agency“

Mold (female voice)

Rossetti wrote poems that give a vibrant voice to the female experience

Galt

“Rossetti effortlessly and sharply convinced her audience that she is a woman whom the conventions of society could not shake in any area; that she had her own agenda“

Rosenblum

“In a patriarchal culture woman inevitably experiences herself as object and other“

Kirby

“Rossetti's women challenge male authority”

Robert M. Kachur

“Rossetti’s originality as a tractarian writer’ is in her ability to ‘question the patriarchal interpretations of the Bible handed down to her.“

Landow

“to ask her beloved to stop mourning her death is to embody ‘the Victorian view of female selflessness“

Dorothy Mermin

“When it came to the figure of the fallen woman, ‘Rossetti treated such women sympathetically, reserving her scorn for the men’“

Bucher

“Rossetti’s love for God always trumps the love of another human“

Bowra

“The poem (Song) evokes a melancholy desire for death”