Rossetti-A Discussion of Four of Her Poems

Christina Rossetti –A Discussion of Four of Her Poems:

Rossetti was born in London and educated at home by her mother. Her siblings were the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, and Maria Francesca Rossetti. Their father, Gabriele Rossetti, was an Italian poet and a political asylum seeker from Naples; their mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori. In the 1840s her family was stricken with severe financial difficulties due to the deterioration of her father's physical and mental health. When she was 14, Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown and left school.

Her breakdown was followed by bouts of depression and related illness. During this period she, her mother, and her sister became seriously interested in the Anglo-Catholic movement that was part of the Church of England. This religious devotion played a major role in Rossetti's personal life: in her late teens she became engaged to the painter James Collinson but this ended because he reverted to Catholicism; later she became involved with the linguist Charles Cayley but did not marry him, also for religious reasons. She was a volunteer worker from 1859 to 1870 at the St Mary Magdalene "house of charity" in Highgate, a refuge for former prostitutes.

Rossetti began writing at age 7 but she was 31 before her first work was published — Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). The collection garnered much critical praise and, according to Jan Marsh, "Elizabeth Barrett Browning's death two months later led to Rossetti being hailed as her natural successor as 'female laureate'." The title poem from this book is one of Rossetti's best known works and, although at first glance it may seem merely to be a nursery rhyme about two sisters' misadventures with goblins, the poem is multi-layered, challenging, and complex. Critics have interpreted the piece in a variety of ways: seeing it as an allegory about temptation and salvation; a commentary on Victorian gender roles and female agency; and a work about erotic desire and social redemption. Some readers have noted its likeness to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" given both poems' religious themes of temptation, sin and redemption by vicarious suffering.

Her Christmas poem "In the Bleak Midwinter" became widely known after her death when set as a Christmas carol by Gustav Holst as well as by other composers.

Rossetti continued to write and publish for the rest of her life although she focused primarily on devotional writing and children's poetry. She maintained a large circle of friends and for ten years volunteered at a home for prostitutes. She was ambivalent about women's suffrage but many scholars have identified feminist themes in her poetry. Furthermore, as Marsh notes, "she was opposed to war, slavery (in the American South), cruelty to animals (in the prevalent practice of animal experimentation), the exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution and all forms of military aggression."

In the later decades of her life, Rossetti suffered from Graves Disease. In 1893 she developed cancer, and died the following year 29 December 1894; she is buried in Highgate Cemetery. In the early 20th century Rossetti's popularity faded as many respected Victorian writers' reputations suffered from Modernism's backlash. Rossetti remained largely unnoticed and unread until the 1970s when feminist scholars began to recover and comment on her work. In the last few decades Rossetti's writing has been rediscovered and she has regained admittance into the Victorian literary canon.

 

Goblin Market

Plot

Goblin Market is about two close sisters, Laura and Lizzie, as well as the goblin men to whom the title refers, and another girl named Jeanie.

Although the sisters seem to be quite young, they live by themselves in a house, and are accustomed to draw water every evening from a stream. As the poem begins, twilight is falling, and as usual the sisters hear the calls from the Goblin merchants, who sell fruits in fantastic abundance, variety and savor. On this evening, Laura lingers at the stream after her sister has left for home. Wanting fruit but having no money, the impulsive Laura offers a lock of her hair and "a tear more rare than pearl."

Laura gorges on the delicious fruit in a sort of bacchic frenzy, then comes to her senses and, after picking up one of the seeds, returns home. Lizzie, waiting at home, and "full of wise upbraidings," reminds Laura about the cautionary tale of Jeanie, another girl who, having likewise partaken of the goblin men's fruits, sadly died just at the beginning of winter, after a long decline.

Night has by then fallen, and the sisters go to sleep in their shared bed.

The next day, as Laura and Lizzie go about their work in the house, Laura dreamily longs for the coming evening's meeting with the goblin men. But at the stream that evening, as she strains to hear the usual goblin chants and cries, Laura discovers to her horror that, although Lizzie still hears the goblins' voices, she no longer can.

Unable to buy more of the forbidden fruit, pining away for the lack of it, Laura falls into a slow physical deterioration and depression. As winter approaches, Laura pines away and no longer does her household work. One day she remembers the saved seed and plants it, but it bears nothing.

Weeks and months pass, and finally sister Lizzie realizes that Laura is on the verge of death. Lizzie resolves to visit the goblin men to buy some of their fruit, hoping thereby to soothe Laura's pain. Carrying a silver penny, Lizzie goes down to the brook and is greeted in a friendly way by the goblins. But their attitudes turn malicious when they realize Lizzie wants to pay with mere money, and to carry the fruits home with her. Enraged, the goblins pummel and assault Lizzie, trying to make her eat the fruits. In the process, the goblins drench the brave girl in fruit juice and pulp.

Lizzie escapes to run home, hoping that Laura will eat and drink the juice from her body. The weakened sister does so, then undergoes a violent transformation of such intensity that her life seems to hang in the balance.

The next morning, though, Laura has returned to her old self, both physically and mentally. As the last stanza attests, both Laura and Lizzie live to tell their children of the evils of the goblins' fruits – and the awesome powers of sisterly love.

 

Criticism

Since the 1970s, critics have tended to view Goblin Market as an expression of Rossetti's feminist (or proto-feminist) politics. Most critics agree that the poem is about feminine sexuality and its relation to Victorian social mores. In addition to its clear allusions to Adam and Eve, forbidden fruit, and temptation, there is much in the poem that seems overtly sexual, such as when Lizzie, going to buy fruit from the goblins, considers her dead friend Jeanie, "Who should have been a bride; / But who for joys brides hope to have / Fell sick and died", and lines like "Lizzie uttered not a word;/ Would not open lip from lip/ Lest they should cram a mouthful in;/ But laughed in heart to feel the drip/ Of juice that syruped all her face,/ And lodged in dimples of her chin,/ And streaked her neck which quaked like curd."

The poem's attitude toward this temptation seems ambiguous, since the happy ending offers the possibility of redemption for Laura, while typical Victorian portrayals of the "fallen woman" ended in the fallen woman's death. It is worth noting that although the historical record is lacking, Rossetti apparently began working at Highgate Penitentiary for fallen women shortly after composing "Goblin Market" in the spring of 1859.

According to Antony Harrison of North Carolina State University, Jerome McGann reads the poem as a criticism of Victorian marriage markets and conveys "the need for an alternative social order". For Sandra Gilbert, the fruit represents Victorian women's exclusion from the world of art.[1] Other scholars – most notably Herbert Tucker – view the poem as a critique on the rise of advertising in pre-capitalist England, with the goblins utilising clever marketing tactics to seduce. Laura J. Hartman, among others, has pointed out the parallels between Laura's experience and the experience of drug addiction.

The poem uses an irregular rhyme scheme, often using couplets or ABAB rhymes, but also repeating some rhymes many times in succession, or allowing long gaps between a word and its partner. The meter is also irregular, typically (though not always) keeping four or five stresses per line. The lines below show the varied stress patterns, as well as an interior rhyme (grey/decay) picked up by the end-rhyme with "away". The initial line quoted here, "bright", rhymes with "night" a full seven lines earlier.

But when the noon waxed bright

Her hair grew thin and grey;

She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn

To swift decay, and burn

Her fire away.

Jessie Cameron

Jessie Cameron is a poem about the story of a girl who is propositioned by a young man but rejects him. The young man is the son of a "witch" and referred to as being of gypsy descent. Jessie is an outspoken girl, and turns this man down even after he tells her of his undying love for her on the basis that "he may be right for others" but not for her.

The poem ends tragically- both Jessie and her lover disappear into the sea and cries are heard as echoes forever more. Nobody knows whether the young man threw his life away or whether he lost it... hints at his sorcerous background.

 

Maude Clare

"Maude Clare," by Christina Rossetti, deals differently with the common Pre-Raphaelite theme of tragic love than do contemporary members of the PRB. While Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poems infuse love with elements of tragedy through the introduction of death, Christina Rossetti's work, 'Maude Clare" deals with a more complex form of tragic love. As Lord Thomas's previous love, Maude Clare's presence sullies the nuptials between Nell and him, adding conflict to the wedding day occasion. Neither bride nor groom experience pure joy during the occasion because of Maude Clare's conspicuous attendance:

My lord was pale with inward strife, And Nell was pale with pride;

Rather than using flowery description or hard-edged realism, like her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti primarily composes her narrative poem of dialogue. Her unusual preponderance of dialogue with little attention to description of the environment gives the reader a sense of watching a scene in a play, rather than reading a poem.

Instead of stealing the focus of the wedding day, as one would traditionally expect, the bride forfeits all the attention to Maude Clare. A former lover (perhaps a very recent lover) of Lord Thomas, Maude usurps the reader's attention as the focal point of the narrative at the outset of the first stanza:

Out of the church she followed them With a lofty step and mien: His Bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like a queen.

Rossetti continues to contrast Maude Clare and the bride throughout the poem. Nell serves as a secondary character, speaking only in retaliation to Maude Clare's non-too-well masked jabs, and pales, literally and figuratively, in comparison to Maude Clare's stature and personage. As an ironic wedding gift, Maude Clare offers Thomas and Nell both physical amulets of love like 'half of the golden chain" that Thomas wore, as well as a more biting gift of her 'share of a fickle heart." Though Rossetti doesn't specifically delineate the exact circumstances that lead to this uncomfortably awkward and emotionally charged wedding scene, she highlights the profound tension between Maude Clare and Nell. Furthermore, Lord Thomas struggles to reconcile his marital vows and obligations to Nell with Maude Clare, the 'More wise, and much more fair" other woman. Maude Clare claims that she has washed her hands of Thomas and that Nell can have his heart, which lacks 'bloom" or 'dew", implying that it has somehow lost its sparkle. The tone of her words and her conspicuous domination of the scene reveal her true, somewhat bitter attachments, however. In the end when, in a curt exchange of dialogue, the two women shoot venom-charged words at one another, Nell's retaliation concludes the poem. The interchange reminds us of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream when, while fighting over Lysander's affections, Helena attacks Hermia by calling her a puppet, prompting the deterioration of the argument into a clawing, biting, physical confrontation:

"Yea, tho' you're taller by the head, More wise, and much more fair; I'll love him till he loves me best, Me best of all, Maude Clare."

Though not the blushing, bubbling bride that one might stereotypically expect, Nell gets the last word, but not the last thought. Rossetti's choice to emphasize Maude Clare's name in the finale leaves the reader to ponder the impending doom of Thomas and Nell's marriage. With the looming presence of Maude Clare at their wedding, acting as a bad omen for the marriage in general, it's unlikely that Thomas will ever love Nell the best, as she hopes. The tragedy lies not in a spiritual love lost by means of mortality, but instead in the interplay of a love triangle that leaves all parties unsatisfied, confused, and still longing for an ill-manifested vision of love.

 

Winter: My Secret

There have typically been two main interpretations of the secret. One is that it is sexual in nature. Rossetti has an interesting history when it comes to the subject of men and marriage; we talked last time about how twice in her life—once with James Collinson and again with Charles Cayley (incidentally a relationship that begins approximately the same time that this poem is written)—Rossetti goes through relationships that suddenly break off. Some critics have suggested that the "secret" in this poem is an early expression of a love and perhaps even a sexual attraction to Charles Cayley that has not yet progressed to the point that it can be spoken. Even if we move away from the biographical interpretation of the poem, there are certain things that lend themselves to such a reading. Note particularly line 23-34—these lines follow the description of winter as being a cold, barren time. We move from this empty, bleak time into spring, but the speaker refuses to tell her secret even then because of fear that something may kill it. The only time when she might tell her secret is in the summer. Be sure to note the language here which should take us back to Keatsian sensual pleasure! It's in the summer, when everything has blossomed and come to fruition that the secret can (possibly) be spoken, suggesting that the speaker must progress in the relationship to a certain point (and this is reading the relationship between the speaker and the auditor as the relationship that is developing).

An alternative take on this, however, is that the secret is simply knowledge of the speaker. If we think about relationships (think back to Goblin Market), knowledge about someone becomes a way of possessing them. A secret, by definition, is withholding knowledge. Thus for the speaker of the poem to withhold knowledge about herself from the auditor—whether that be someone within the poem or us as readers as the last line implies—is to assert power over the auditor. This reading emphasizes the second word of the title; it is MY secret as opposed to ours or yours.

Whether the emphasis is on the secret (and the sexual nature of the secret) or on the possession of the secret, either way, CR asserts that we cannot know. We can't pigeon hole, interpret the poem in a single right way. The secret is that the poem is open to multiple readings, many ways of looking at things. We see an interesting contrast to this in "In an Artist's Studio" where the speaker accuses the artist of having tried to possess the subject of his art in an almost vampiric way.

Such poems sometimes appropriately reveal her ability to be playful and ironically detached, to parody the kinds of issues her poetry raises. Such is the case in a poem like "Winter: My Secret." In it the speaker confesses to wearing masks:

We find the clue to understanding this enigmatic poem in its self-parodic tone. The extraordinary fact here is that the work builds a thoroughly engaging relationship between the speaker and reader out of nothing substantial. No events transpire or are described, and even the "secret" has no extrinsic reference. The reader's curiosity and affection for the speaker are generated entirely by means of a fictive enigma that compels our interest. The poem thus becomes a commentary upon itself, upon the "secret" power of art. It also becomes, on an admittedly small scale, an exemplification of artistic perfection, a self-sufficing artefact. That such may be its design is indicated by the clear allusions, in the first three lines of the last stanza, to Keats's odes "To a Nightingale" and "To Autumn," both of which are concerned with acts of poetic creativity and the acceptance of created beauty (whether imaginative or natural) for its own sake.

Like many of Rossetti's poems, "Winter: My Secret" skilfully indulges in linguistic, formal, and metaphorical play. Such works by her are often unsettling because of their self-conscious experimentation and their aesthetic as well as substantive challenges to convention. Yet, unlike "Winter: My Secret," these works frequently close in conventionally settled ways — with the thematic, dramatic, or psychological tensions resolved. Closure, however, very often embodies a literal resignation of the rebelliousness of language, themes, and characterization within the works, a giving over of the potential evoked in the poems for destabilizing the conventional world (of language, social expectations, literary conventions) in which the poems are usually set.