Rossetti Critics

Question 1

Harrison: earthly love

Answer 1

‘Focus is not on the possibility of fulfilling earthly love, or upon betrayal in love, but rather renunciation’

Question 2

Bocher: heavenly love

Answer 2

‘Rossetti’s love for God always trumps love for another human […] does not stop the narrators of her poems having abundant love for other people’

Question 3

Mermin: gender expectations

Answer 3

‘Rossetti stopped trying to rebel […] she finds an appropriate place for a conventional woman’s voice’

Question 4

Avery: No, Thank You, John

Answer 4

‘She is not to be bullied into a relationship because a man or social convention more generally wants it’

Question 5

Morden: gender rebellion

Answer 5

‘Beneath the sentiments of compliance in her poetry there is often an uterine of resistance, surpassed passion and desperate longing’

Question 6

Mold: female oppression

Answer 6

‘Poems that give a vibrant voice to the female experience […] denied the social and economic freedoms enjoyed by men’

Question 7

Palazzo: Goblin Market

Answer 7

‘More than a hint that male gender oppression can be interpreted as a sin’