Critical Quotes Flashcards
Stuart Curran
pretty language, dismissal by male critics
“her poetry is largely devoid of sharp observation, whether intellectual or imaginative”
“she falls back on pretty language which is the bane of so many women poets”
Christina Rossetti
anxieties and depression
“I feel at home among anxieties and depression”
Arthur Symons
sombre nature of her poetry
“Rossetti’s genius was essentially sombre, or it wrote itself at least on a dark background of gloom”
Phillip Larkin
admired Rossetti’s “steely stoicism”
male perceptions of women’s poetry: Saturday Review
The early male reviewers and critics of Rossetti often dismissed and reduced the complexity of her work
For instance, in the Saturday Review, published in 1866, a reviewer spoke of Rossetti’s poems: “There is not much thinking in them, not much high or deep feeling, no passion”
“But they are melodious and sweet … there is a certain quaint originality… the writer delights to treat all her fancies”
By dismissing any trace of deep thinking, by speaking of Rossetti’s poems as ‘melodious’, ‘sweet’ and ‘quaint’ and by calling her subjects ‘fancies’, the critic confines her writings to his expectations of what is fitting for female verse
male perceptions of women’s poetry: William Michael Rossetti
Rossetti’s own brother, William Michael, said “I question her having ever once deliberated with herself whether or not she would write out something… Instead of this, something impelled her feelings or came into her head”
By suggesting that Rossetti’s process of poetic composition involved no serious deliberation, William Michael discredits the idea that Rossetti is a serious poet to be considered in the same framework as her male contemporaries
Stuart Curran
reducing the complexity of her poetry
Curran states that Rossetti was “just a simple pious woman”, dismissing the complexity of her poetry
feminist criticism: the label of feminism being assigned to Rossetti, her poetry was often seen as proto-feminist
The Oxford English Dictionary defines feminism as ‘the advocacy of the rights of women’
Although Rossetti was not generally perceived as a feminist in her own day since she did not support female suffrage, the term feminist has been applied to her by various critics who see her poetry as an attempt to include women where they had been previously excluded
Rossetti often gives a voice to female speakers and challenges the stereotypical gender roles of her time
feminist criticism: The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) by Gilbert and Gubar
In their 1979 feminist study of nineteenth century women’s literature, The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar recognise the factors that prevented a Victorian woman from standing on equal terms to their male contemporaries
They suggest that Rossetti is among the “singers of renunciation” of her time and argue that she willingly accepts the state of destitution into which she is cast
They emphasise how the culture of patriarchy curbed her passions and meant that she was not the powerful female role model that she had the potential to become
Rossetti is therefore an exemplification of the restrictions placed upon women
feminist criticism: Lost Saints (1966) by Tricia Lootens
In her 1996 book, Lost Saints, Tricia Lootens analyses how Victorian women poets were glorified as saints whilst, paradoxically, their intellectual input was systematically dismissed by their male contemporaries
Her analysis of Rossetti seeks to highlight the various ways in which she has been excluded by critical thought and re-positions her as a serious subject for feminist scholarship to consider
feminist criticism: Christina Rossetti’s Feminist Theology (2002) by Lynda Palazzo
In her 2002 book, Christina Rossetti’s Feminist Theology, Lynda Palazzo writes of how….
“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”
Maurice Bowra
death
“Christina is obsessed by thoughts of death” and has a “melancholy desire for death”
Rosenblum
objectification of women
“A woman inevitably experiences herself as object and other”
Gaynell Galt
Rossetti’s own resistance against societal expectations and determination
“Rossetti effortlessly and sharply convinces her audience that she is a woman whom the conventions of society could not shake”
Stevenson
Rossetti’s own suppression expressed in her poetry
her poetry “contains a minimum of intellectual substance… firmly suppressed by several forces”
