Pre-Raphaelite Women, Art, & Poetry, Part C

Pre-Raphaelite Women:

Christina Rossetti

Index

Literary Biography

The Life of Christina Rossetti--short biography of Christina, her sister, and her mother.
Christina (Georgina) Rossetti --biography of Christina.
Christina Rossetti Biography --more in-depth life and times of Christina Rossetti.

Christina and Frances Rossetti

by D.G. Rossetti

Christina Rossetti and the Visual Arts and C. Rossetti's Literary Career--Christina's relationship with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Christina Rossetti Overview (Landow site) for more information. PR Models, Lovers, Artists--information on Christina as a model for her artist-brother.
Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood--excellent introduction by Rossetti biographer Jan Marsh.

Goblin Market: E-texts, Criticism

Goblin Market--e-text.
Illustrated Goblin Market--text and graphics, some by D.G. Rossetti.
Goblin Market Overview--browse many links.

Golden Head by Golden Head

by D.G. Rossetti

Goblin Market Essay --good introductory essay summarizing different readings of the poem.

Goblin Market questions and reading questions--study questions.

Afterward by Joyce Carol Oates--comments on the sexual imagery and unanswered questions posed by the poem.

Theme in Goblin Market (Landow site)--helpful comments

Christina Rossetti in Context--major selections from Harrison's scholarly book.

Critical Approaches to the Poem-- summarizes various ways of reading the poem.

Annotated Bibliography: Goblin Market--good summaries of various critical approaches to Goblin Market.

Unholy Senses--good student essay.

"Of Sugar-Baited Words": A Linguistic Analysis of Goblin Market--Rodreguez's scholarly article.

"Their fruits like honey in the throat / But poison in the blood": Christina Rossetti and The Vampyre--Morrison's essay on "Goblin Market."

Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market': Revision of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' --M.A. thesis.

There Is No Friend like a Sister: Psychic Integration in Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market'-- Snider's scholarly essay using a Jungian approach.

What's the import?": Indefinitiveness of Meaning in Nineteenth-Century Parabolic Poems --scholarly article; last section discusses "Goblin Market."

The Woman Question. Sisterhood, Sexuality and Subversion in Christina Rossetti’s 'Goblin Market' --scholarly article (scroll down the page).

Subject/Object: The War of the Rossettis --interesting comparison-contrast of Rossetti images of women produced by the painter-brother and the poet-sister.

Review of C. Rossetti Literary Biography (Jan Marsh)--Do Goblin Market and related poems like My Dream indicate she was a victim of child molestation?

My Dream

by Christina Rossetti

Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night,

Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.

I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled

Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:

It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight,

Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled

Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,

Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.

The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend,

My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;

And therefore it were wisely left untold.

Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.

Each crocodile was girt with massive gold

And polished stones that with their wearers grew:

But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,

Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,

Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.

All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,

But special burnishment adorned his mail

And special terror weighed upon his frown;

His punier brethren quaked before his tail,

Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.

So he grew lord and master of his kin:

But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?

An execrable appetite arose,

He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.

He knew no law, he feared no binding law,

But ground them with inexorable jaw:

The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,

Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,

While still like a hungry death he fed his maw;

Till every minor crocodile being dead

And buried too, himself gorged to the full,

He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.

Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:

In sleep he dwindled to the common size,

And all the empire faded from his coat.

Then from far off a winged vessel came,

Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:

I know not what it bore of freight or host,

But white it was as an avenging ghost.

It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;

Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote

It seemed to tame the waters without force

Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:

Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,

The prudent crocodile rose on his feet

And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.

What can it mean? you ask. I answer not

For meaning, but myself must echo, What?

And tell it as I saw it on the spot.

Christina Rossetti and Fernand Khnopff

'Who Shall Deliver Me'

by Fernand Khnopff

"I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all? . . .

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;"

from Christina Rossetti,
'Who Shall Deliver Me'

Khnopff biography of Belgian symbolist artist Fernand Khnopff who was inspired by Rossetti's poem.

Isolation and Hypnotism in Khnopff's 'I Lock the Door Upon Myself' --scholarly article.

Rossetti's poem Who Shall Deliver Me--read in conjunction with Goblin Market.

Other Poems: E-texts

Selected Poetry of Christina Rossetti--excellent selection.

Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti--13 poems

Criticism: General

The Dead Woman Talks Back: Christina Rossetti's Ironic Intonation of the Dead Fair Maiden--read about Rossetti's ironic reversal of the male-created images of Blessed Damozel/Lady of Shalott.

'Grown Sick with Hope Deferred': Christina Rossetti's Darker Musings --scholarly article.

Christina Rossetti, Women, and Patience--excerpt from Blake's Love and the Woman Question in Victorian Literature

'Liberating the Muse' in 'Monna Innominata' and A Female Perspective in Christina Rossetti's 'Monna Innominata' --good essay selections.

Imagining Ophelia in Christina Rossetti's 'Sleeping at Last' --scholarly article.

Christina Rossetti's 'Monna Innominata'--good essay.

Christina Rossetti Overview (Landow site)-- biography and other categories with short commentaries. Jan Marsh's Review includes copy of "Song: When I Am Dead, My Dear" and the Works section includes a discussion of "Song."

The Longing for Motherhood--e-book; chapters on typical C. Rossetti themes: 1. Introduction; 2. Biographical Situation; 3. More than Nursery Rhyme; 3.1 Her Own Childhood; 4. Religious Poetry; 4.1 Sexual Frustrations; 4.2 Substitute Love; 5. Conclusion.

Related Resources:

The Male Gaze: D.G. Rossetti

PR Models, Lovers, Art-Sisters

PR Art-Sisters Gallery

PR Brotherhood Gallery

Go to Pre-Raphaelite Models, Lovers, Art-Sisters

Return to Index: Pre-Raphaelite Women, Art, & Poetry

Web page design by: knichols