Rossetti Critics

Sir Walter Raleigh

"best poet alive" and compared her to Browning.

Woolf on tone of Rossetti’s poetry

"melancholy reading"

Gosse

Refers to struggle between heart, head and bible

Curran

"falls back on pretty language"

Avery’s opinion on ‘No, thank you, John’

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

Touche on Rossetti’s infertility

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

Mermin on her devotional poems

'[she] stopped trying to rebel'

Mermin on a woman’s voice

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

Rossetti, implies her depression

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

Anon. - sisters in Goblin Market

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

Harrison on ‘A Birthday’

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

Avery on impact on women

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

Morden on sexual transgression

Goblin market was 'an allegory of sexual transgression'

Anonymous (1876)

'passive femininity'

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) - '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'

Gilbert & Gubar GM in power

Both women seem to be 'metaphorically eating words and enjoying the taste of power'

Maureen Duffy (1972) - GM sex + sexuality

'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, guilt

'about guilt, and the pleasure of guilt'

Conrad Festa - '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 - GM

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

Georgina Battiscombe

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..

'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'

Elizabeth Helsinger on Goblin Market

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

William Sharp on Rossetti

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

Role of Women - Marianne Skoczek

‘It is the wife who appears the least desirable of all’

Kelley S. Kent - evil? sexuality

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

Religion - Nour Alarabi

‘Early works are a mixture of secular and religious themes, whereas her later writings come as a testament to her full reconciliation with religion.’

Class - Katherine Angela Jackson

‘[her] wit rallies against inequality shown to the working class in contemporary society.’

Gender - Dolores Rosenblum

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

Virginia Woolf

Rossetti “starved into austere emaciation a very fine original gift..”

Virginia Woolf on Rossetti’s view of the world

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

Virginia Woolf on Rossetti’s God

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

Arthur Symons

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

Richard Gill on Rossetti’s characters

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

Harrison on Victorian sexual repression

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

Harrison - dedication to ..

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

Harrison on Rossetti’s view of women

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

Symons, Rossetti’s obsession with.

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

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

"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"

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"

A Bogharni - Goblin Market, psychoanalytical

Laura as Id, Lizzie as Superego

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,

the female figure is depicted as entrapped or confined - physically, psychologically, or both’

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

culmination of all compulsive amatory passions - renunciation’

Roe: Rossetti uses '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

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 on Rossetti’s valuability

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

bocher

her religious vies affect everything she wrote, regardless of topic

bocher - Rossetti’s devotion to God

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

hullah

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

kent

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

coelhoe

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

Weiss

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

cluely

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

gilbert and gilbar - about rossetti accepting 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

Lynda Palazzo on radical rewriting of Eve

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

Caroline Norton on Goblin market

an allegory against the pleasures of sinful love