rossetti ao5

• The theme of transgression: "The theme of the fallen woman is a central concern in Rossetti's poetry, as she explores the consequences of sexual transgression in a patriarchal society." Weltman, C21
• Harrison, C21: “unrelenting attacks upon the indulgence of sexual desire" "often troped as illness or represented as an addiction”
• “almost everything she wrote is either overtly Christian or suffused with Christian feeling.” Mermin, C20
• Her poems: "express a sense of loneliness and isolation, as she grapples with the paradox of living in a fallen world." - Ludlow, C21
• Common in her later work: "almost all her later work is devotional or didactic" - Mermin, C20
• Gilbert and Gubar C20: G.M "depicts multiple heroines, each representing alternative possibilities of selfhood for women."
• Mendoza C21, asserts that Goblin Market explores: "the overlapping spheres of Victorian economics and sexual politics"
• Holt C20, about the economic nature of 'Goblin Market': "the poem becomes a parable, not only about gender relations, but about power relations as well"
• "the poetess of the Tractarian movement" McGann, C20
• "large number of seemingly passive female figures which populate a large number of her verses" Spaise, C20
• Kenyon, C19, her poetry revealed: "the austere beauty of a chaste nun-like spirit"
• Current, C20, asserts that her works are "a reflection of the intense religious focus of her life"
• Rosetti's poetry constitutes: "a personal myth of loss, stoic endurance, and restitution" Rosenblum, C20
• Goblin Market situated in "the market of cultural production and consumption" Kooistra, C20
• 'Rossetti draws ideas about Eve’s Original sin and the spiritual weakness of women to explore female religious guilt and inadequacy” Backer, C19