rossetti critics ao5

selflessness (when i am dead my dearest)

'an attempt to embody the victorian view of female selflessness' - Landow

contentment (when i am dead my dearest)

'the woman perhaps realises peace and contentment without her beloved' - Kim

love and death (echo)

'none of her poems reflect joy or hope; in her the idea of love turned inexorably to the idea of death' - Bowra

religion (good friday)

'religion comforted her and enriched her... it wasn't just something that boxed her in' - Major

nature (shut out)

'to her, nature was always a relief, and escape' - Simon

judged (shut out)

'being a woman in victorian britain meant that you were doubly judged: by man and by god' - Bocher

christian (uphill)

'a christian allegory in miniature' - Ludlow

attack (twice)

'the attack is implicitly upon the powerlessness of women in a rigid patriarchal society' - Harrison

god (twice)

'in the end of rossetti's love for god always trumps the love of another human' - Bocher

sexuality (goblin market)

'reflects a profound fear of female sexuality' - Harrison

warning (goblin market)

'a didactic poem to be read to these women as a warning' - Bentley

christ (goblin market)

'rossetti portrays lizzie as a self-sacrificing christ-figure who brings life out of death' - Scholl

sisterhood (goblin market)

'rossetti's version of sisterhood may seem limitative and restrictive' - Kirby

boundaries (goblin market)

'an allegory for a woman trying to transcend the boundaries placed upon her by society' - Kirby

parable (goblin market)

'a conventional parable' - Morden

twentieth century (no thank you john)

'a poem which any twentieth century girl might have written' - Thomas

female characters (no thank you john)

'strong-minded female characters' - Cahill

proposal (no thank you john)

'to reject a marriage proposal seemed counter to the victorian mentality' - Galt

bullied (no thank you john)

'she is not to be bullied into a relationship because a man or social convention more generally demands it' - Avery

game (winter my secret)

'a self fully in control of its own game' - Leighton

skilfully (winter my secret)

'the speaker skilfully withholds power and control' - Avery

negotiation (winter my secret)

'winter my secret reveals a much more complex negotiation of power which enabled the women to achieve agency, equality and self-sufficiency' - Avery

power (winter my secret)

'a study in the manipulation of power' - Avery

hegemonic (maude clare)

'engages the discourse on hegemonic definitions of victorian femininity' - Phillips

marriage (maude clare)

'the poem dwells on the idea that marriage is not an ideal or fulfilled love' - Pearce

critique (maude clare)

'maude clare is a clear critique of dominant masculinity' - Avery

uncompromising (from the antique)

'these lines are uncompromising in their analysis of a woman's place in society - Avery

other (from the antique)

'in a patriarchal culture, woman inevitably experiences herself as object and other' - Rosenblum

wife (in the round tower)

'the wife is left without a name; her only significance is as an appendage of her husband' - Pearce

pairing (in the round tower)

'rossetti creates a very conventional pairing: the husband is protector and the wife is infantilised' - Williams

desire (soeur louise)

'desire has destroyed both her mature femininity and innocence' - Rosenblum

isolation (soeur louise)

'rossetti explores isolation as a rejection of the world which renders the woman as good as dead' - Rosenblum

death

'christina is obsessed by thoughts of death' - Bowra

radical

'her view may not always be 'radical' as such, but they are usually far from conservative and often questioning, challenging and potentially subversive' - Avery

love

'rossetti predominately expresses an emotional love, not a sexualised love' - Bocher

god

'in rossetti's poetry god is always present'

rebel

'rossetti stopped trying to rebel: in her devotional writings she finds an appropriate place for a conventional woman's voice' - Mermin

expectations

'rossetti's speakers demonstrate both an awareness of and resistance to those social and political expectations which define roles for women' - Avery

confined

'in rossetti's poems, the female figure is depicted as entrapped or confined - physically, psychologically, or both' - Avery

pre-raphaelite

'women are importance in the pre-raphaelite movement. but while their faces are seen everywhere, their voices are never heard' - Marsh

doubt

'rossetti's poems repeatedly struggle with religious doubt, frustration and fear' - Avery

emotions

'a poet not of thought or ideas but of emotions' - Schmidt

desires

'rossetti's speakers often own their desires, rather than rejecting it' - Unsworth

female suffering

'her understanding of female suffering and exploitation in particular was ahead of her time and even, at points, almost proto-feminist' - Williams

reform

'typically, rossetti's poems evince a concern with individual salvation, rather than social reform'