Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1987

Thesis Director

Sharon Bartling

Abstract

During Christina Rossetti's lifetime (1830-1894), and for some fifty years after her death, critical attention focused on her life, more specifically on how that life affected her poetry. Critics tried to show how her Italian ancestors, artistic brothers, spiritual mother and sister, and her many illnesses influenced her works. Other than these basic facts, little else was known.

Later, psychological critics found much sexual symbolism in the "repressed" poet's works. "Goblin Market," with its tale of strange little goblin men seducing innocent maids with their fruits seemed particularly well-suited to a Freudian approach. This poem received so much attention that it overshadowed Rossetti's other works. Feminist critics of the later twentieth century have joined the psychological critics in concentrating on "Goblin Market. " They see in the poem not only the repression of Rossetti's sexuality but also the oppression brought about by Victorian society's views of women.

Rossetti's works can support more than the feminist or psychological perspective. Rossetti is a skilled poet. To see her skill, one must only read her poetry. There is no need to examine speculative biographies, Freudian analyses, or feminist theories. All that Rossetti wants us to know is in her poetry.

The purpose of this study is to examine Rossetti's poetry as poetry. This paper examines her first volume, Goblin Market and Other Poems, and its technical skills. Special attention is given to rhyme, meter, and imagery. To limit the study, only those poems that deal with renewal are discussed. Rossetti produced many and varied poems with this subject and these provide many examples of her strengths and weaknesses.

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