Knocking at Paradise: Christina Rosetti Rewrites "The Blessed Damozel"

Abstract

Even in 1990s, literary critics stereotype Victorian age as one of prudery and sexual repression. In a 1994 essay, Nadean Bishop argues that much of Christina Rosetti's poetry reveals the anguish which internal between eroticism and religion caused (145). By examining this supposed clash I question belief that Rossetti's religious fervor . . . cannot cohabit with sexual passion (Bishop 141). In particular, I would like to counter still prevalent view of Rossetti as a woman who recoiled from surrounding sexuality of her artistic milieu (Bishop 139) by turning to devotional poetry. On contrary, Rossetti participated in Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's poetic practice of mingling eroticism and religion and even revised this practice in her own poetry, to her own ends. In mid-nineteenth-century, contemporary critics of Rossetti's poetry are mostly concerned with reviewing her just-published volumes, comparing her with her famous brother, and questioning moral content of Goblin Market. But some of this early criticism attempts to address ? and even to resolve ? clash that Bishop identifies. The genres Rossetti employs, particularly love lyric and devotional poem, are perceived as being in conflict. Mid-nineteenth-century critics typically compare relative merit of these two genres: