Daniel C's English Journal

Christina Rossetti one of the finest devotional poets in the english tradition.
She was a “Poet’s poet”, an “Artist devoted to art”.
Christina Rossetti born 1830 and died in 1894, was described by many as a ‘saint’ and it was said how strongly Christina would relate her pieces of poetry very closely to religion and being spiritual; this being due to the physical and psychological crisis which she suffered and the idea which is one of her poems called ‘Hope in Grief’:

Tell me not that death of grief
Is the only sure relief,
Tell me not that hope when dead
Leaves a void that naught can fill,
Gnawings that may not be fed

This poem was entered into her notebook after her breakdown and within the context of Christina’s life understand the ‘mindset’ of Christina, this being apparent in the use of language with words such as “grief”, “dead”, “void” presenting this very alone and sad attitude and yet the contradictory terms such as “hope”, “relief” which shows a conflict and contrast of emotions.
It is very common in alot of her poems the theme of ‘women in grief’, examples being death’s chill between where a woman’s beloved dies and the second ‘Heart’s chill between’ where a woman has to face the loss of a faithless lover; these themes discuss the ideas of relationship and enables the reader to question whether a partner or relationshop played a significant role in Christina’s life.

When looking at the structure of Christina’s poems, firstly the concept of the first and last line both discussing a natural location allows the reader to gain access to a backround meaning of the poem.
The terms used in some of the poems include “waves”, “rivers”, “springs” which presents the idea of something being out human control and in this case in ‘dream-Land’ being death.
Also the high use ‘water’ related terms could possibly present the idea of something being thin and not pure and the idea of unpredictably which can relate to all of her poems and to an extent, Christina’s own life.

What i think is interesting, is that during the 19th century Christina’s poems would’ve been seen in a normal context and through the themes like these which were normally used in the poems of these times, however as an immediate impression to a modern day audience, Christina’s poems seem very dull, depressing and shows the ideas that would’ve been displayed to context such as our attachment and judgement of words such as ‘grief’.

In the poems the main character/only character is always a female and expresses opinions from a  very feminist view, this including the equality and liberty of rights for both man and woman which relates to the idea of men and women being to write just as equally as each other as Christina showed.                                                                                                                  It is also said that at the time, Christina’s writing style was disliked and to some extent questioned because of how averse it is to the orphodox style of poetry, this led to not being able to put her poetry in newspapers or magazines for a long time, and I feel it showed a very courageous and determined individual to ‘stick by her guns’ and continue on in her own way and become highly successful from it.

Goblin market was once again a poem with the kiss of a feminist on it, whilst studying in class, I noticed how key parts of the poem explore the opinions of how women can do it just as much as men can, this being where the two sisters talk about how their light can ‘shine’ just as bright.

I think Christina would be a very strong woman, with very forward and outgoing opinions, who would stick by her point and do/write what she feel’s write.