I I46 Reviews and present, memory and experience' (p. 236). The two traumas seem only loosely linked. Keats and Heine write out of amelancholy sense of their own belatedness, con demned to reproduce Romantic tropes so thatwhat was once a spontaneous overflow becomes a tissue of quotations. Both write from 'an intrinsically exiled perspective' (p. 43 i),Heine as a Jew,and Keats as aCockney. Pfau succeeds in this, thebook's final section, inbringing together an English and aGerman poet so that thework of each rather strikingly illuminates thework of theother, and the effect is todemonstrate the value of the 'broader European focus' (p. 25) thatPfau brings toRomantic Studies. UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW RICHARD CRONIN Christina Rossetti: The Patience of Style. By CONSTANCEW. HASSETT. (Victorian Literature and Culture Series) Charlottesville and London: University ofVir giniaPress. 2005. Xiii+278pp. ?26.49. ISBN 978-O-8I39-2339-0. Many critics have noted the reserve, reticence, and quietude implicit inChristina Ros setti's verse, themeswhich tend tobe recast in termsof 'renunciation or endurance or disappointment' (p. I I7). Constance W Hassett's study rethinks theapparent detach ment ofRossetti's style as 'patience', a remarkably insightfulmanceuvre which allows for its alert and discerning argument to unfold.When Hassett writes thatRossetti's 'style ispatient with itself,trusting itsown subtleties ofmanner to achieve resonance and allowing inexplicitness todo itsevocative work' (p. i), she could be describing her own criticalmode-careful, thoughtful, and understated. The book's own style fulfils the rare taskofmaking the reader listen toHassett and indoing so listen toRossetti, both writers encouraging a reciprocity of attention in the reader and poet. By un derlining the importance of close readingwhen approaching Rossetti's work, Hassett produces some brilliant analyses ofwell-known poems, and indoing so avoids simply conceptualizing theircontent as secretive, ambiguous, or unknowable. In Chapter i, forexample, 'GoblinMarket' isunderstood as a poem made up ofmixed desires that are unleashed but then held back by Rossetti's patient style. Laura's depiction as 'a vessel at the launch I When its last restraint is gone' is an image which allows her the experience of surging forward into freedom even as the 'narrative strand warns against', Hassett suggests (p. 25). Such vigilance in reading isdemanded byRossetti inHassett's view, poems such as 'At Home', 'Dream-Land', and 'Remember' being filledwith 'attention' to 'inatten tion' and the consequent perils of rash interpretation (p. 33). Emotionally insulated by her own style,Rossetti is able to explore painful motifs-death, regret, sorrow, frustration,hope deferred-without dwelling on them.As Hassett argues, she 'gladly escapes into [a] soft-edged sadness as away of recasting life's sharper andmore speci ficanxieties' (p. 35). Tracing the impact of predecessors such asHemans and Landon inChapter 2, the book establishes a 'mastery of understatement' (p. io6) at the core of Rossetti's poetry, one that is charged by a 'restrained lyricmomentum' (p. i i6) that allows it to pursue inaccessible and distant themes. Perhaps, Hassett argues, this iswhy 'Who has seen thewind?' remains so compelling, resting as it does on the 'possibility of feeling a power that cannot be seen' (p. 153). Chapter 3's reading of Sing-Song iswonderfully astute in its insistence on the volume's doubleness: its 'richlysustained playfulness' grants itserious content, one that 'values and names the sorrows and pleasures of children' (p. I53) as it teaches them how to listen to verse. This process, the book shows, enables readers to learn the complexity of the kind of restraint characteristic of Rossetti's sonnets, a genre towhich Hassett dedicates a furtherdetailed and considerate chapter. But it is the closing chapter, 'Rossetti's MLR, I02.4, 2007 1147 Finale,' which also proves tobe Hassett's finaleand interpretative peak, a discussion centred on the poet's reading of Revelation, The Face of theDeep (I892), and also Verses (I893). Both texts are formalhybrids, biblical, exegetic, and lyrical,concerned 'not to arrange an argument but toorder the flowof emotions as these are felt in the timing of syllables and verses, the pacing of rhymes, and the overall momentum of stanzas' (p. 232). Allowing herself, and the reader, to experience but not be crushed by theviolence of feeling inherent in religious faith,Rossetti contains thenightmarish...