Rossetti Critics

Sir Walter Raleigh

"best poet alive" and compared her to Browning.

Woolf

"melancholy reading"

Gosse

Refers to struggle between heart, head and bible

Curran

"falls back on pretty language"

Avery

no thank you john - "what this poem asserts is a women's right to say no and to claim independence"

Palazzo

Shut Out shows the 'social and spiritual abuse of women'

Touche

Rossetti's infertility is shown in 'a series of poems dealing with plants and their fruitfulness'

Mermin

in her devotional poems 'Christina Rossetti stopped trying to rebel'

Mermin

in her devotional writings she finds an appropriate place for a conventional woman's voice

Marsh

(suggested that Rossetti had been incestuously sexually abused by her father)

Rossetti

I seized upon a pair of scissors, and ripped up my arm to vent my wrath

Anon.

prostitution ... was widely discussed as a highly important issue in Victorian England

Anon.

The "sisters" are either not sisters at all, or are engaged in an incestuous relationship

Littell 1866

we can perceive, too, very plainly the presence of a self-disciplined heart

Harrison

A Birthday explores the 'possibilities for attaining an ideal, wholly fulfilling love relationship in the real world'

Avery

Rossetti's poems encourage women to 'claim independence and agency'

Morden

Goblin market was 'an allegory of sexual transgression'

Anonymous (1876)

Lauds Rossetti's 'womanly self-effacement' and 'passive femininity'

Moore (20C)

'furious emotional pre-occupation - its contradictions, its meekness, its pleasure in pain, its resolution to snare an invisible substance'

Amelia Marjorie Bald (1923)

'Christina's soul was like a radiant texture, its colours flashing and quivering as if some hidden life were rippling through its folds'

Sir Edward Boyle (1936)

'depth and sensitiveness of feeling'

Georgina Battiscombe (1981)

'human love and divine love: she saw the two as very closely akin'

Jerome J. McGann (1980) - 'Winter: My Secret'

Uses the persona secret as a symbol of individuality: 'Independence is a function of the ability to have a secret which the sanctioned forces of society can not invade'

Jerome J. McGann (1980) - 'No, Thank You, John'

Speaker politely refuses to sacrifice her individuality
'In that reserve of purpose lies CR's power, her secret, her very self'

A.A. De Vitis (1968) - GM

Thinks the two sisters are the embodiments of the two sides of the artist's character: 'Laura is the passionate artist...Lizzie is the obedient maiden'
The world of the day signifies the 'world of practical reality'
The world of the night signifies the 'world of imagination'

Gilbert & Gubar (1979) - GM

Both women seem to be 'metaphorically eating words and enjoying the taste of power'
The haunted glen os more than a female sex symbol; 'it represents a chasm in the mind,'
'Certainly, Eve, devouring the garden's intellectual food, acts like her descendant, Laura'
Eve's ultimate goal is equality with, or superiority to Adam. Likewise, Laura is: 'metaphorically eating words and enjoying the taste of power, just as Eve before her did'

Maureen Duffy (1972) - GM

'both grotesque and erotic'
'L&L represent the heterosexual male desire to see blue films about lesbians'
The goblins attempt to press the fruit into Lizzie's mouth 'suggests attempted rape'
Laura's kissing of Lizzie when she returns 'is a violent image of spontaneous orgasm'

Germaine Greer (20C) - GM

'about guilt, and the pleasure of guilt'

Conrad Festa (1973) - 'A Birthday'

Sees the bird, apple tree and shell as fertility symbols, expressive of 'full, open, and complete joy for love's fulfilment, or expected fulfillment'

Marian Shalkhauser (1956) - GM

Lizzie as the 'symbol of Christ; Laura represents Adam-Eve and all of sinful mankind'

Georgina Battiscombe (1965)

Says CR's poetry is 'as full of colour and detail as a Pre-Raphaelite picture'

Cora Kaplan (20C) - GM

'exploration of women's sexual fantasy which includes suggestions of masochism, homoeroticism, rape or incest'

Ellen Golub (20C) - GM

Believes Lizzie represents the alter ego of Laura, symbolic of the other half of the divided self.
Power struggle between mother and child - Lizzie 'expressing the child's stubborn defiance of the withdrawal of love...usurps the maternal hierarchy and sends the goblins into oblivion'
'the fall from innocence is, after all, an ascent into experience'

Virginia Woolf (20C)

Rossetti 'pulled legs' and 'tweaked noses'

Elizabeth Helsinger (20C)

Focus on the poems treatment of material exchange and the the market place, emphasise Rossetti's awareness of women's position as both agents and objects in the Victorian political economy.

William Sharp (1895)

'She is the finest woman-poet since Mrs. Barrett Browning'

Christina Rossetti uses different imagery to express the depth of faith and love.

Love and Marriage - Sharon Wiseman

It is the wife who appears the least desirable of all.

Role of Women - Marianne Skoczek

Sexuality in itself is not evil, just the Goblin's distorted representation of it.

Evil - Kelley S. Kent

Rossetti maintains Milton's view of the confrontational relationship between mankind and evil.

Evil - Dinah Roe

Her early work includes a mixture of secular and religious themes, whereas her later writings come as a testament to her full reconciliation with religion.

Religion - Nour Alarabi

Rossetti's work has a strong political leaning because it rallies against inequality shown to the working class in contemporary society.

Class - Katherine Angela Jackson

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

Gender - Dolores Rosenblum

John Ruskin

'Your sister should exercise herself in the severest commonplace of meter until she can write as the public like

Virginia Woolf

Rossetti 'starved into austere emaciation a very fine original gift, which she only wanted license to take itself a far finer form than, shall we say, Mrs Browning's'

Virginia Woolf

'You had a keen sense for the visual beauty of the world'

Virginia Woolf

'Your God was a harsh God, your heavenly crown was set with thorns'

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
(The Madwoman in the Attic)

'Rossetti, banqueting on bitterness, must bury herself alive in a coffin of renunciation'

"Almost every poem leaves on the mind a sense of satisfaction, of rightness"

Arthur Symons

"Her characters have to cope with the the disappointment of a love that has gone wrong"

Richard Gill

Goblin Market is "an extreme instance of Victorian sexual repression"

Harrison

Rossetti's poetry arises "from a conflict, not always easily resolved for Rossetti, between aesthetic and moral impulses"

Harrison

her poetry is "about dedication to art and expression rather than religion"

Harrison

Rossetti "seems to treat women in a divine manner as even fallen women like Maude Clare are made to stand above their male peers"

Harrison

she has an "obsession with the idea of death and the temporary nature of human existence"

Symons

Michael O'Donnell - Rossetti's conformity (poetic)

"Christina Rossetti is both able to conform whilst providing subtle deviations from any presumed uniformity of tone"

Susan Conley - Rossetti's view of Death

"Death is a bittersweet victory over the unloving living"

George Landow - 'Song'

"The notion of complete indifference on which Christina Rossetti ends this poem is particularly shocking."

Meaghan Kelly - About 'Song' again

"Song exposes the inadequacy of earthly love"

Josephine Pearce - 'Echo'

"how she can communicate with her dead lover while she is dreaming"

Rhian Williams - Rossetti's style of poetry

Poetry is "bright", "vibrant", "jewel-like"

Rhian Williams - Goblin Market

"The Goblin Market is a playing out of the dynamic of the two sisters, Christina and Mariah"

Dinah Birch - Goblin Market

"Lizzie is christ-like"

A Bogharni - Goblin Market

Laura as Id, Lizzie as Superego

Susan Kappeler

''Carter is an apologist fleeing to a literary sanctuary outside of political criticism''

Anthony H Harrison: no experience of love

no experience of love in the mutable world is adequate to fulfill the ideal love of our fervent desires

Breanna Bycroft on In An Artist's Studio: 'the description of the female subject...

the description of the female subject is consistent with the stereotypical Victorian view of female patience, passivity and selflessness

Simon Avery: Rossetti 'may not always be...

may not always be radical, but they are challenging and potentially subversive

Avery: 'time and time again,

time and time again, the female figure is depicted as entrapped or confined - physically, psychologically, or both

Avery: Rossetti's poems convey 'the apparently inevitable...

the apparently inevitable culmination of all compulsive amatory passions - renunciation

Roe: Rossetti uses 'deceptively...

deceptively day-to-day language to convey complex moral issues

Roe: 'Rossetti gave God...

rossetti gave god the attention other poets might lavish on a female muse

Roe: much of Rossetti's poetry challenges

much of rosseti's poetry challenges her reputation as too morbid, humourless, or pious

Roe: 'Rossetti does not shy away from...

rossetti does not shy away from collision and confrontation'

William Rossetti accused Christina of being

over-scrupulous as a Christian

Anthony H. Harrison: 'no experience

no experience of love in the mutable world is adequate to fulfil the ideal love our fervent desires compel us to project

Yopie Pins on Sappho: Rossetti 'seeks to

seeks to animate the motionless statue into a feminine figure oscillating between life and death

Virginia Woolf: Rossetti

starved her gift into austere emaciation

Gilbert and Gubar: Rossetti

Rossetti willingly accepts the state of destitution into which she is cast

Lynda Palazzo (Women)

Rossetti has radically rewritten the social and spiritual abuse of women

Lynda Palazzo (Men)

Male gender oppression can be interpreted as original sin

Ford Madox Brown

the most valuable poet that the Victorian age produced

Sandra Gilbert

an almost extreme self-pity and self-congratulation at her self-denial

John Ruskin (to Dante R)

Your sister should excercise herself ... until she can write as the public like

her religious vies affect everything she wrote, regardless of topic

bocher

rossetti's love for god always trumps the love of another human

bocher

life on earth as a mere pale reflection of the higher form of existence to be enjoyed hereafter

hullah

goblin market is about rejecting carnal lust and finding sexuality in marriage

kent

love as an influence- It is not just a feeling, it is an art

coelhoe

Rossetti creates analogies between the biblical description of salvation and in the social context of the Victorian era

weiss

ripening of fruits can be seen like a rush into sexual maturity

cluely

gilbert and gilbar -about rossetti acceting the patriarchal society she was born in and therefore not identifying as a feminist

she willingly accepts the state of destitution into which she is cast

Lynda Palazzo-about heavy religious imagery

her poems and devotional prose can be interpreted as interpretations of the Bible

John Ruskin in a letter to Dante Gabriel after Goblin Market was published

Your sister should exercise herself in the severest commonplace of meter until she can write as the public like

Ford Maddox Brown

Christina Rossetti seems to us to be the most valuable poet that the Victorian age produced

Lynda Palazzo on religion

Rossetti has radically rewritten the fall of Eve(in Goblin Market)

Caroline Norton on Goblin market

an allegory against the pleasures of sinful love