Christina Rossetti Research Paper

Although she existed long before any women’s movement, poet Christina Rossetti was a champion for female equality and empowerment. Considered a major Victorian poet, she is often compared to Emily Dickinson because of the similarity of their subject matter. Yet while Dickinson’s poetry often glorifies love and relationships, Rossetti’s poems tend to focus more on female empowerment. During most of the Victorian era, the woman’s place was in her home, taking care of her family. Historian Barbara Welter noted that four virtues were important to Victorian women: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity (Women). However, with the advent of charitable missions during the century, women’s roles were extended to include service to the church, which led to the beginning of a new Victorian feminism (Abrahms, 2001). As changes in perception regarding women’s roles emerged, women’s rights in regard to education, employment, and marriage began to be debated. This new way of thinking is evident throughout Rossetti’s poems, which often embrace a feminist ideology. Although Rossetti most likely would not have considered herself a feminist at the time, her bold and thoughtful expressions unknowingly coincided with these early feminist ideas.

Rossetti’s upbringing provides some insight into her feminist motivation. Born on December 5, 1830

Goblin Market can be seen as a metaphor for the shame and dishonor women in the Victorian era would receive upon being openly sexual and desiring beings. In the poem, Laura succumbing to the Goblin’s fruit represents a woman fulfilling sexual desires, but the fact that Lizzie has to rescue Laura leads one to believe that Lizzie’s satisfaction with the fruits was wrong, and even deadly. Lizzie admonishes Laura by stating, ““No,” said Lizzie, “No, no,