Christina Rossetti's Feminist Theology by Lynda Palazzo (review)

Abstract

756 Reviews of Shelley's poetry. In some ways I read Shelley as a poet of obstinate questionings, who has, in Michael O'Neill's words, 'a dislike of reaching conclusions' (Romanti? cism and the Self-Conscious Poem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 131). Peterfreund 's interpretations, however, are geared towards conclusions which are coloured by the predominance of either metaphor or metonymy: 'Metaphor is forward-looking, whereas metonymy is backward-looking. Metaphor is the figure of love expressed; metonymy, the figure of desire repressed. Metaphor projects while metonymy reifies' (p. 30). Metonymy is associated with 'bad'; metaphor with 'good'. For some texts, such as The Mask ofAnarchy, this makes sense, but some texts, e.g. The Cenci, clearly do not benefit from the simplified morality underlying the metonymy/metaphor ten? sion. For Peterfreund, Shelley's poetic development is characterized by 'the hope of a language that can somehow transcend the contingencies of the material and the temporal' (p. 270), which is in itself not a new idea, but this does not justify, I think, the rather strained over-reading of 'Ode to the West Wind', in which 'lyre' is read as a pun on 'liar' (and its connotations of limitations). Peterfreund is at his best in close readings, when he seems to forget about the restrictive framework he has set up; these readings?I particularly enjoyed sections on The Revolt of Islam?are informed by a formidable command of allusions and sources. His study is comprehensive indeed, but Shelley's poetic dramatization of humanity and its aspirations, however perverse, fortunately resists a late twentiethcentury moralistic framework. I am sure that many critics will vigorously debate Peterfreund's readings, and that we can expect exciting times ahead in Shelley scholar? ship, particularly now that we have farmore definitive texts of his work available to us. Victoria University of Wellington Heidi Thomson Christina Rossetti's Feminist Theology. By Lynda Palazzo. (Cross-Currents in Re? ligion and Culture) Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. 2002. xiv+ 165 pp. ?45. ISBN 0-333-79469-9. Although important articles by,forexample, Coleen Hobbs (A View from the "Lowest Place": Christina Rossetti's Devotional Prose', Victorian Poetry, 32 (1994), 40928 ) and Joel Westerholme (' "I Will Magnify Mine Office": Christina Rossetti's Au? thoritative Voice in her Devotional Prose', Victorian Newsletter, 84 (1993), n-17) have begun to sketch the ambiguities and paradoxes of a devout Anglo-Catholic woman intervening in theological matters, Christina Rossetti's devotional prose and poetry continues to be neglected. Christina Rossetti's Feminist Theology is therefore welcome as the firstbook-length study of Rossetti's diverse and demanding devo? tional prose volumes, Annus Domini (1874), Seek and Find (1879), Called to Be Saints (1881), Letter and Spirit (1883), Time Flies (1885), and The Face of the Deep (1892). Palazzo's discussion works best as a clear, readable, and accessible introduction to these works, carefully explaining their religious contexts, symbolic structure, and key negotiations with the Bible (in particular the wisdom texts). Furthermore, and again as a crucial introductory tool, the study establishes a strong sense of teleology in Ros? setti's developing confidence as a religious prose writer,her evolution into a Victorian sage, and the shifting grounds of her theology. Overall, according to Palazzo, Rossetti's theology developed into a 'web ofwomen's experience' and 'from the wholeness and sense ofthe relatedness of things' (p. 139), located in marginal figures such as Mary in her early novella Maude but also, and especially as she grows in confidence and is prepared to take liberties with Scripture, in the mundane minutiae of everyday commonplace life. Palazzo presents a postRomantic and political Rossetti, who reinterprets Tractarian theology through S. T. MLR, 99.3, 2004 757 Coleridge's work on symbol and allegory and through a specifically female response to the repressions of patriarchal religion that deny the validity of women's experience and bodies. Rossetti develops an active theology that insists on its accessibility and relevance to the detail of women's everyday life. Furthermore?and this the book's most significant achievement?this argument challenges the dominant view that Ros? setti's religion was based on renunciation and repression, initiated in accounts by...