Critics for Rossetti Flashcards
Dinah Roe - Atmosphere
Rosetti creates a disorientating fairytale atmosphere that is simultaneously seductive and alienating
Dinah Roe - Playboy
1973 Playboy - unambiguously pornographic depiction of Laura’s consumption
Pamela Bickley - Strange imagery
The vivid strangeness of her imagery is compelling
Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt - Feminist reading
Rossetti revises traditional Christian myths to produce feminist readings of the Fall and the Redemption
Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt - Religious reading
In a sense, all of Rossetti’s poetry is deeply religious - concerned always with the relation of this world to the next.
Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt - Female christ
A feminist Christ redeems a feminine mankind from a masculine satan
Lizzie is a female Christ figure.
Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt - Religious beliefs of Rossetti
Religious belief for Rossetti both curbed her ambition and offered an escape from the restrictions imposed by her sex
Ray Clueley - Allegory
Allegory against the pleasures of sinful love
Ray Clueley - Doubling of Laura
Laura is disregarded after her sexual transgressions, much like the rinds of the fruits that she so carelessly throws away.
Ray Clueley - Morality tale
Narrative poem for children conceals a morality tale about female sexuality
Jan Marsh - Debate of meaning
Rossetti insisted the poem was not an allegory but not simply a fanciful tale either, and its meaning is subject to debate
Suzanne Williams - Puzzle
playful piece of nonsense or a cryptic puzzle
Suzanne Williams - Mindset
Rossetti has taken a ‘non-confrontational and colonial mindset’
Despite her ‘strong social conscience, her view of the empire is ‘narrow and cliched’
Suzanne Williams - Melodrama
It is a classic piece of sentimental Victorian melodrama
George Norton - Joys of religion
For her constant talk of religion, she seldom spoke of its joys
Simon Avery - Astute questioner
Her work possesses an intellectual depth and positions Rossetti as an ‘astute questioner of the contemporary world’
Simon Avery - Pre-Raphaelite imagery
Piles up image after image of pre-raphealite paintings
Aline Downey - Religious guilt
Her work alternates between a tone of serene pity and religious guilt
John Hathaway - Sister Louise persona
This poem stands away from many of Rossetti’s other poems where there is less of a clear differentiation between Rossetti and the persona she assumes
John Hathaway - Evocation
Powerful and lyrical evocation of female suffering
Gilbert and Gubar - Innocent domesticity
Lizzie is ultimately led to a heaven of innocent domesticity
Alice Kirby - Sisterhood
In Goblin Market, she creates a pre-raphealite sisterhood, which didn’t and couldn’t exist in reality
Gilbert and Gubar - Surrogate selves
Rossetti’s female speakers can be depicted as her ‘surrogate selves to whom she projects her literary anxieties’
Alice Kirby - Domestic bliss
The poem’s ending of domestic bliss is, in some respects, the epitome of Coventry Patmore’s ‘The Angel in the House’
Alice Kirby - Artistic Sisterhood
In the rigid Victorian society, there is no place for artistic sisterhood
Simon Avery - Rossetti’s social views
Her views may not be radical, but they are far from conservative
Simon Avery - Winter my Secret
‘playful nature’ and is an ‘intriguing study into the manipulation of power
Eva West - Fulfilment
A woman’s fulfilment may be postponed, not for another day but for another life.
Richard Redwood - Doll Homes
‘Thousands of such doll-homes’ aligned with Ibsens progressive views
Tom Mole - Echo
A shadow version of reunion is available in dreams
Gothic rewriting of the selfless love of ‘Remember’
Tom Mole - Round Tower
The cliche of ‘not a hope in the world’ raises a religious debate, questioning if they have a hope beyond the world, a supernatural hope
Tom Mole - A Birthday
The poem could be an allegory of a rebirth into a religious life
Allegorical christian reading
Tom Mole - Winter: My Secret
The speaker is continually suggesting that she wants to create that kind of bond but she is also holding off the revelation
initially titled Nonsense
Tom Mole - Up-Hill
Uphill journey is an allegory for Christian life towards god and heaven
Doubt is a part of the Christian experience but it is answered by faith
Tom Mole - No Thank You John
The poem should not be read as a piece of evidence or her state of mind but rather as a work of art
Tom Mole - Good Friday
Lead us out of the slavery of sin to the promise of redemption
Tom Mole - Twice
Confident in the welcome of god that differs drastically from her lover’s rejection
God is worthy of the subservience
Strange likeness of earthly and godly love
Tom Mole - When I am Dead
The world is imagined as a place of pain and difficulty that the dead speaker is relieved from
Rape of Philomena - nightingale symbol
Tom Mole - Remember
Broken rhyme pulls against the poems comfortable message
Tom Mole - From the Antique
impossibility of the ‘I wish, I wish’
Cora Kaplan - Peeping at temptation
Lizzie may resist eating the fruit, but she, like the narrator is always ‘peeping’ at temptation
Dr Zaynub Zuman -intriguing instability
The mixture of vibrant, sensual images with an almost cloistered reserve creates an intriguing instability
Dr Zaynub Zuman - oscillates
Goblin Market oscillates between fairytale and sexual fantasy, a poem full of eroticism and religious imagery
