Studying Christina Rossetti

How to approach poetry:
Read the poem aloud.
Look up words/phrases you do not understand.
What is the poem about- (Literally and figuratively)
Language Analysis.
Context (her atttitudes towards what shes talking about)
Common links between poems.


Echo:
-Mourning a death/stillborn child?
-"Soft rounded cheeks" "Whose wakening should have been in paradise"
-Links to No,Thank you,John- being haunted by someone.

Remember:
-Talking to people she will leave behind after death.
-Rather be forgotten, than make people feel sad when mourning her death.

Song:
-Theme: death/how she is remembered.
-Telling people not to grieve for her.
-Acceptance of death.

From the Antique:
-Would rather be dead (or a man) than  a woman- women were oppressed.
-Theme: Feminsim and oppression in victorian era.
-Theme: After death rememberance.

A birthday:
-In love, more happy than other poems.
-Sensual.

Shut out:
-She has lost something.
-Garden is symbolic for someone/something.
-The "Garden" is re-growing but it's not as good as it was, "not so dear", "not the best"

RE-ACCURING THEMES THROUGHOUT ROSSETTI'S POEMS:
-Life after death- doesn't want people to mourn.
-Death- peoples' attitudes towards it- she was ill for much of her life, suffered a lot of bereavements in her lifetime, death was more common.
-Loss/Absence. -Not having someone/something- (Isolated) -Never married, never had children.
-Personal Identity:- female/gender identity. How it feels to be a woman and how she fits into society.
-How she would be considered after her death, as a poet.
-Emotional pain.
-Religion.
-Uses direct address, often to men. (Patriachal society)
-Natural imagery- influenced by the romantic poets.

Links to context:                


*Persona, narrator, voice (1st person) *
-Rossetti writes from the persepective of a persona, often biographical.