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Christina Rossetti

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Christina Rossetti

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    1. Christina Rossetti “An Aesthetics of Renunciation”: a doctrine of beauty based on renunciation— “a poetry of deferral, of deflection, of negation, whose very denials and constraints give her a powerful way to articulate a poetic self…” (NA 1460). “Song” (p. 1461) is a poem that highlights the end of the sensual in death. It emphasizes the absence of sight, touch, and sound: I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale. The poem presents simple, powerful negativity, and it seems to renounce life and accept death more than Keats’s poem about the nightingale. “After Death” (p. 1461) is a poem in which the speaker imagines herself after she has died, and she describes a man who pities her once she is dead but “did not love [her] living.” The poem highlights emotion not openly expressed in life, and it isn’t even outwardly revealed in death, as the man who showed her no love in life turns away from her corpse so that she, the dead person, couldn’t see him weep. She only knows of his emotion because of her omniscience. To hide emotion from a dead person seems so Victorian in a cliché way—it’s so reserved.

    2. “In an Artist’s Studio” (p. 1463) echoes “My Last Duchess” in the way it describes the objectification of a woman: “not as she is, but as she fills his dream.” “Winter: My Secret” (p. 1464-65). A Victorian’s Secret: It appears the speaker likes to play things close to the vest; she will not reveal everything. Winter is a time when people wear layers of clothes. The poem is like a strip tease or maybe the opposite of that. Perhaps some “languid summer day” she will tell her secret—or maybe not. But you can be sure no secrets will be exposed in winter: Today’s a nipping day, a biting day; In which one wants a shawl, A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: I cannot ope to every one who taps… …I wear my mask for warmth NOTE: Unlike stereotypical Romantics, Victorians such as Browning and Rossetti typically do not bear their own soul. They do not wear their hearts on their sleeves. Their poetry, which shows great interest in masks, also recognizes this trait in others.

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