Essay on the presentation of Nature in Rossetti’s poems.

‘Compare the way Rossetti presents nature in her poems.’ 

Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet who had very passionate views of life, society, love and religion. These views were often expressed in her poetry through the use of a persona. This persona was used as a cloak for Rossetti as it helped her to express her opinions and views of society without fear of getting into trouble for stating them. Rossetti presents nature as a thing of purity and beauty in her poems. She also uses nature to represent God’s power and importance (as a high Anglican Rossetti put religion at the centre of her life). Keats was a huge influence on Rossetti and like him, she was heavily inspired by nature and even at times romanticised it to present love and other themes as such. Overall, Rossetti uses nature to express her views on inequality within society and the pressure put onto women within a patriarchal society.

In Rossetti’s poem ‘Paradise: In a dream’ she writes about an unreal utopian paradise that she has imagined. Although it is obvious that this place doesn’t exist Rossetti goes into extremely fine detail about how perfect it is. The amount of detail Rossetti goes into about this place makes it seem like it actually exists. Of course, it only exists in her imagination though. This leads to the idea that perhaps this place could be representing heaven. Because although it is not known for certain whether it actually exists, the imagery of it is so powerful that it leads us to believe that it does exist or at least it does in some context. This conclusion has been drawn from the fact that she draws beauty out of every aspect of nature – bird songs ‘full of grace’, ‘perfect violet’, ‘perfume bearing rose’. The fact that bird songs are ‘full of grace’ gives an overall feeling of God’s presence, and ‘perfect’ violets imply the idea of a flawless place filled with infinite beauty. The effect of her doing this leads us to believe that these objects and feelings are so blissful and perfect that the only thing that they can be overall representing is heaven.

In this poem Rossetti also uses nature to represent Jesus/God – ‘The Tree of Life , the fact this line is placed directly at the centre of the poem shows that Rossetti believed that Christ was at the centre of everything, especially nature. Rossetti chooses to represent Christ as the ‘Tree of Life’ that is also ‘Budding’ because it shows that with God at his side he fertilised the perfect world by saving us all from sin and sacrificing himself for us to live and grow. Trees are also associated as being Tall, height is a symbol of power and importance, this can be linked to God through the idea that God resides in the sky above us, and we have to look up to him, just as people have to look up to see the top of a tree. The fact that the tree is ‘Budding’ shows the promise of new life given to us by God, it is seen to be a magnificent gift. Rossetti’s belief in God is extremely emphasised within this metaphor and shows the reader exactly how dedicated to God Rossetti actually was.

Evaluation of a valid critical review of Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Goblin Market.’

The review being evaluated is by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra and is called ‘Modern Markets for Goblin Market.’  (Review found on JSTOR)

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  Rossetti’s best known poem tells the story of a girl called Laura, who exchanges a lock of her hair for luscious goblin fruit which almost results in her death. And her sister, Lizzie, braves the horrifying goblin market to retrieve the needed antidote for her sister without the loss of a golden curl or silver penny.
• 
  
• Sexual reference taboo in children’s literature.
• “Come buy” – children (juvenile), adult fantasies (pornographic), scholars (academic).
• 2 Distinct readers, adult and child. Meaning the poem will be interpreted in different ways to suit the reader.
• The illustrations of the poem have changed the genre and interpretations of the text.
• The pictures transform the text into adult fantasies or children’s fairy tales, depending on the reader’s interpretation.
• It’s a fable or fairy tale.
• OR perhaps it is an allegory against the pleasures of sinful love.
• Children’s Literature.
• Modern representations of Rossetti believe her to have been an isolated and repressed spinster with no sexual experience. This has led to the idea of innocence in the poem, and therefore making it appropriate for children.
• Sexual subtext for adults.
• ‘Goblin Market’ has been distributed in the modern day pornography market.
• In the last 20 years 2 explicit versions of this poem have been published for this market.
• It has also been published for academic markets.
• Pre- Raphaelite aesthetic.
• The reviewer for the Catholic World objected to the poem on the grounds that it was morally deficient in its symbolic portrayal of the conflict between sense and spirit because it failed to denounce (and properly punish) the human tendency to yield and temptation.