Rossetti Critics

The Victorian period was...

The forbidden fruit undoubtedly refers to female sexuality yet it can also relate to female education & knowledge.

Rossetti's poems are uncompromising in their analysis of women's place in society'

give(s) vibrant voice to the female experience despite living the life of a Victorian lady

Idea of love turned inexorably to the idea of death, & we see her shrinking from the surrender which love demands.

Rossetti predominately expresses an emotional love - and not a sexualised love

Longings and cravings are ever present in Christina Rossetti's poetry

Rossetti has radically rewritten the Fall of Eve in terms of the social and spiritual abuse of women

The great danger that the Victorian cult of love and marriage posed to the souls of women

In Rossetti's poetry, God is always present, is always there sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the background.

'Hope' for meaning and clarity and completeness must be 'deferred' until she can escape from the ... worldly existence.