Rossetti and Renunciation

As an individual I find Christina Rossetti particularly fascinating and Goblin Market has always been high up on my list of favorite poems. There has been a significant amount of critical discussion on Christina and her brother Dante Gabriel and below I explore briefly just one tiny part of that analysis -  Rossetti and the theme of renunciation in her poetry.           

Rossetti, was the product of an unusual upbringing of Italian and English Victorian middle class. Raymond Chapman elaborates on this interesting point, “the sensuous hunger of her southern temperament warred with a growing sense that her lot was to be renunciation. If her religion was a release of tensions it partly created, there is no derogation of that faith or of the writing which it influenced.”  The theme of renunciation runs not only throughout her poetry, which is often mystical in tone, but throughout her life. In one of Anthony. H Harrison’s most recent works he states that, “historically, criticism of Rossetti has properly emphasised her renuciatory mind-set. Vanitus Mundi is her most frequent theme.”

 
Rossetti also demonstrates the consequences of failing to resist temptation  as explored in perhaps Rossetti’s most famous work Goblin Market. In this poem, Laura succumbs to temptation and takes the goblin fruit from the goblin males which results in a rapid decline in her life on earth. She is then regenerated only by the self-sacrifice of her sister who resists temptation and takes the abuse of the goblins. Mary Arseneau adds, “Laura is committing the error warned against; she is focusing exclusively on the senses and is ceasing to look beyond the physical to the more important spiritual and moral issues.”   

        

 Similarly in Maude, the spiritual breakdown of the protagonist who feels unworthy of going to communion due to the worldly temptations resulting from her art eventually results in her death.      

         Harrison elaborates;

“this literary construct usually involves initial desires for fulfillment of passion in this world, which are or have been) undermined by an experience of betrayal (either by the beloved or illusory ideals). Renunciation or at least withdrawal from the active pursuit of love follows disillusionment; often the speaker craves death, either as an anodyne or as a transposition to an afterlife of absolute love, in which the beloved regenerated as an eschatological figure or is replaced by God,” (139) which demonstrates both Laura and Maude’s desire for death.

        

Additionally, in Betty Flower’s introduction to the 2001 collection of Rossetti’s poetry she speaks of the poem The World;

“Rossetti reveals meaning through her lyric diction, utilizing such phrase choices as "subtle serpents" and "ripe fruits." The English love sonnets that inspired her work often used romantic images of "fruits" and "sweet flowers," which use in "The World" creates a seemingly paradoxical image when preceded by the phrase "subtle serpents." This paradox therefore reveals her contradiction between innocent romantic love and sinful erotic desire. When viewed in terms of the Fall, the two phrases remain completely analogous, thus implying that romantic love and erotic desire are one in the same sin. Rossetti had, in fact, "a great horror of Ôther world' in the sense which the terms bears in the New Testament; its power to blur all the great traits of character, to deaden all lofty aims, to clog all the impulses of the soul aspiring to unseen Truth"
        

Jerome .J. Mcgann, a particularly influential critic on Rossetti states that,

“her poetry is an oblique glimpse into the heaven and the hell of late Victorian England as that world was meditated by the experiences of Rossetti. Rossetti’s heaven and hell are always conceptualised in terms of personal love relations: true and real love as opposed to the various illusions of happiness, pleasure and fulfilment.”(139)

         

This point by Mcgann also demonstrates one aspect the platonic influences upon Rossetti’s poetry. Rossetti utilises the cave allegory often as she speaks of the illusions we experience here on earth, shadows of the real thing which we can unveil when eros is renounced, or as Harrison adds “she exemplifies the pathway, the ladder of love, its joyful ascent toward a more perfect beauty than we have ever actually yet seen.” (133)  Diane D’Amico makes a similar point, simply put that “renunciation in this life leads to reward in the next” (64) and it is this fundamental belief which focuses Rossetti on a life of renunciation. She adds,

“when considering the renunciatory state of Christina Rossetti’s poetry,, it is also essential to recall that for Rossetti , renunciation of worldly pleasure was only a part of the spiritual journey; the goal was always to heaven. Therefore, in reading Rossetti’s poems that urge the reader to renounce the world or to beware the temptations of the world, one must keep in mind her belief in a reward of individual mortality and spiritual joy.”(64)

If this has led you to wanting to learn more about Rossetti,(and I sincerely hope it has - she is wonderful), then here is an interesting newspaper article and a link to the Goblin Market poem to get you started.

Guardian poem of the Week - Goblin Market.
Christina Rossetti - Goblin Market Full Poem

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