Roxanne Eberle, “Rewriting the ‘vile text’: Christina Rossetti and the Poetics of Social Reform,” in Chastity and Transgression in Women’s Writing, 1972–1897: Interrupting the Harlot’s Progress (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 168–201.Ĭatherine Maxwell, “The Poetic Context of Christina Rossetti’s ‘After Death,’” English Studies 76.2 (1995), 144–145. Harrison and Beverly Taylor (DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1992), 67–83 See, for example, Diane D’Amico, “Equal before God: Christina Rossetti and the Fallen Women of Highgate Penitentiary,” in Gender and Discourse in Victorian Literature and Culture, ed. Rossetti often represented the “fallen woman,” and the relationship between such work and her volunteer work with “fallen women” at Highgate Penitentiary has attracted a great dea l of critical attention. This is not to suggest that Rossetti avoided the topos of sexual trans-gression in terms of representation, but such aesthetic representation was not in itself transgressive-it was rather, by midcentury, quite common. Mary Arseneau, Antony Harrison, and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra (Athens: Ohio UP, 1999), 263.Ĭatherine Maxwell, “The Poetic Context of Christina Rossetti’s ‘After Death,’” English Studies 76.2 (1995), 154. Susan Conley, “Rossetti’s Cold Women: Irony and Liminal Fantasy in the Death Lyrics,” The Culture of Christina Rossetti, ed. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.Īs quoted by Alison Chapman, The Afterlife of Christina Rossetti (New York: Saint Martin’s, 2000), 83. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. But supposing she set out to do something innovative and subversive in her poetry- rather than unconsciously stumbling into it, as Victorian readers who recognized her innovations suggested-how would she go about it? Transgression at the hand of a woman writer could not burst onto the scene as “shock.” Women did not “burst” or “shock” if they wished to be received as ladies and wished, as ladies, to be publishable. Unlike her French contemporary, Rossetti rarely comments on her poetry, poetic practice, or aims. Why did no one notice? Difficult, subversive, self-reflexive, ironic, Rossetti’s poetry throughout this collection is marked by qualities readers readily associate with Baudelaire and the tradition in modern poetry he is understood to have inaugurated. " Haply I may remember/Haply I may forget" indicates a solemn tone, as if she has accepted death and that she's okay with the aspect of death.I begin with my central question: suppose that with Christina Rossetti’s 1862 collection Goblin Market and Other Poems, a transgressive, innovative strain in poetry emerges in England nearly simultaneously with Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal in France and its more recognized poetics of shock. " And dreaming through the twilight" which can be seen as ironic as the stative verb ' dreaming' suggests that she sees death as something less horrendous and more calming, thus comparing dreaming to death suggests how she finds it easy to do ' twilight' being the end of life.the fact that she uses the modal verb ' shall' indicates her lack of self-worth and that she won't be able to see the many things that will occur but also the ' nightingale' indicates her pain and sorrow she'll feel after death. " I shall not hear the nightingale" shows how she'll miss things when she is dead.the imperative ' plant' suggests the persona wanting to reduce the grief and remembrance thus suggestive of the persona being authoritative and presents a demanding tone. " Plant thou no roses at my head" illustrates further rejection of any love being presented to her.the personal pronoun indicates how the narrator wants the world to keep flourishing without her, as though she isn't missing - reiterating how she wants her lover to move on. it can also be interpreted as sensuous imagery as it provides optimism, even though the narrator is in a bad position. " Be the grass green above me" explores the comforting tone which the alliteration triggers.' cypress tree' is symbolic as it is usually associated with death and therefore represents the narrator rejecting any forms of grieving. " Nor shady cypress tree" suggests how the pre-modifier ' shady' represents the persona of being distant in order to reduce the bereaving and symbolises darkness but also inculcates a sense of sympathy for the reader." Singing no sad s ongs for me" represents how the sibilance reinforces a weary and melancholic tone ' singing' establishes authority but also sounds demanding as it shows she doesn't want her lover to grieve for her and move on from her and rejects forms of grief.
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