Compare and contrast how Rossetti shows her views on death and the after-life in the poems ‘Song’ and ‘Remember’?

Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 during the Victorian period where they didn’t discuss feelings and kept their emotions to themselves but death was a prominent feature in society and they were all fascinated by it possibly influencing Rossetti’s writing further. Rossetti was heavily inspired by the earlier romantic poet John Keats who wrote about nature, feeling, sensations and death.  The romantic period saw the development of passionate literature filled with feeling, the natural world and death – all theses a prominent within both Keats’ and Rossetti’s writing. In ‘Remember’ Rossetti uses the persona to explore the way she will be remembered after death and for people to remain positive about the life she lived. ‘Song’ also discusses the way people should be remember after death but due to the fact they are at peace and there is no need to be sad as she no longer will be. These poems deal with the concept of death and the transition between life and death.

Firstly, the two poems both view death as an escape, it frees them from a society where they are constantly controlled and male power is exerted over them. Death finally allows them to be at peace.  This is conveyed in song through the change is the way the stanzas are written, to start with they are talking to their lover “Be the green grass above me” but in the second stanza this changes and the persona talks about themselves and the freedom they have in death” I shall not feel the rain”.

It suggests that the persona has broken away, death as has freed them and given them a new empowerment.

Both poems heavily focus on the way people should be remembered after they’ve died. As this is a prominent feature it is clear Rossetti found this particularly important and disagreed with they way people thought of their loved ones that had passed. In ‘Song’ the persona is talking about life after they have died and they way their death should be treated. “Sing no sad songs for me” implies they don’t want to be pitied but their funeral should be a celebration of their life. The persona wants to be remembered as they were when they were alive, they don’t want to have their death as what everyone focuses on. In ‘Remember’ the entire poem focuses on their remembrance hence the title. “..if you should forget me for a while/And afterwards, do not grieve”. This denotes the way they want to be remembered in a positive light, nothing about their death should cause a negative impact on their loved ones.

No, Thank you, John by Christina Rossetti

In ‘No, Thank you, John’ by Christina Rossetti the prominent patriarchal society in 1862 is being continuously challenged. Rossetti creates a persona that refuses to conform to stereotypical relationships where the man has controls the woman. The persona belittles ‘John’ to diminish the power he has “use your common sense”. This phrase has been used to show his stupidity, its made clear he really hasn’t thought this through. It could also imply his arrogance by suggesting he thinks he can have whatever he wants simply because he’s male. The typical male – female roles have been switched.

This has also been inferred by the repetition of words such as ‘day’. “Day by day” implies how exhausted the person is by his pointless persistence. The repetition also indicates boredom because when you do something too many times, “day by day” for example, you grow extremely bored of everyday just being the same.  It mocks ‘John’ as well showing his unimaginative, repetitive and desperation to eventually get the persona Rossetti has created. The repetition also creates a rhythm and helps the poem flow; it also could show how the persona is writing down their thoughts in the moment.

Rossetti contradicts society by mocking men, which would’ve been unheard of during the 1800’s due to the power and control men held over women. By challenging this Rossetti is going against the traditional behaviour and altering the way relationships between men and women are viewed.

I think Rossetti also uses the persona and ‘John’ to show the loveless or business-like relationships that were particularly prominent in the Victorian era. Its clear that the persona has never expressed a love for John “ I never said I loved you John” but he felt that even if he proposed she would accept without considering the way she feels. This is a typical mindset of a man within a patriarchal society – his feelings are the only ones that are relevant or important.  This is probably the most negative element to a society like this because men believe they are the ones that matter and it’s the woman’s job to take care of him regardless of her personal feeling towards this. It would seem John needed a wife and Rossetti’s persona fitted, whether she thought so or not. This again highlights the arrogance and ignorance of men within a patriarchal society.

Male ignorance is again heeded with the use of caesura.  There is lots of caesura with long pauses “I have no heart?  - Perhaps I have not”. Having a question in the middle of a sentence causes a strong pause and breaks the steady rhythm, this creates a moment where its clear to the reader that the persona is in amazement or disbelief as to what’s been said due to his astounding naivety. The pause also causes the reader to contemplate it too, giving a further understanding to the persona and poem in general.

Rossetti has used the persona to take the stereotypical role of the male in this relationship “strike” implies an unusual assertion and accession for a female towards a male. The persona is taking control, which is not common in the 1800’s. It could also suggest her forcing him into a friendship rather than marriage.

Maude Clare

In the poem Maude Clare is attending the wedding of Lord Thomas and Nell but the Lord and Maude were having an affair and he loved her however they wouldn’t have been able to marry as Maude is from a significantly lower class. The only reason the Lord married Nell was because she was of similar class and this fitted the society during the Victorian period.

Mother:

‘smiles but almost tears’ – she is really happy for her son but perhaps even happier that her families legacy will be carried on.  At first it appears as though she is oblivious to the fact he doesn’t want to marry Nell but then she says ‘had just your tale to tell; but he was not so pale as you, nor I so pale as Nell’ this would suggest that this situation was often apparent in high class weddings, they were more for business than love. It makes the adult world seem heartless.

Maude Clare:

·         Naturally poetic and authoritative in the way she speaks and uses language. She creates power from her words regardless of her social status.

·         She uses the wedding gift ritual as an ironic reminder as if shes giving back all her memories to Lord Thomas as there is clearly no need for them now. As she gives back the chain, she has freed herself from it.

·         In the poem Maude Clare speaks in the most stanzas (5/12) to show how shes a powerful, poetic speaker but in real life due to her social class she has no power over anyone in any form other than her words.

 

Nell:

·         At the end Nell gets the last word and comes across very spiteful towards Maude Clare. It shows that in this society, power is more important than love and power creates the final say.

What point do you think Rossetti is making about the Victorian class system?

I think Rossetti uses Maude Clare to get across her views on the class system that was extremely prominent the Victorian era. Maude has the most stanzas which shows that even though she’s the dominant speaker and has powerful poetic things to say, due to her low class anything she says is deemed unimportant especially as she’s speaking to people of a significantly higher class. However, another interpretation could be that regardless of her of class she can take over the poem showing that class wasn’t relevant to Rossetti and that she completely disagreed with the entire class system. Then she uses Maude Clare to take over the poem using powerful poetic language that is capable of making even a Lord falter simply b her words. The character of Maude Clare challenges the class system by being outspoken and extremely clever in the way she conveys herself to get the Lord to falter and stand up for herself as she was betrayed.  I think Rossetti disagrees entirely with the class system as there is no reason it should separate people or make them powerless, in all of her poetry it is apparent at she challenges all forms of unfair power and she aims to create equality in all of her poetry.

Christina Rossetti:Context

 Christina Rossetti was born on the 5th  December 1830 in London. Her father was Gabriele Rossetti who was a poet and her mother was Frances Rossetti. Christina had 2 brothers and a sister, one of her brothers (Dante) was an influential poet and artist and he founded the pre-Raphaelite group in 1848. Education was not compulsory until 1870 therefore her mother and father educated her at home so she had a very creative and imaginative childhood reading lots of fairy tales and poems, its likely this influenced her heavily to begin writing her poetry. In the 1840’s her father became very unwell and had to quit his job, family life became quite difficult and Christina suffered a nervous breakdown at 14 years old. During this period she, her mother and sister all became very interested in the Anglo-Catholic movement and religion became a huge part of her life which is clear when reading her poetry. In 1848 she became engaged to James Collinson but the engagement was broken off when James turned to Catholicism  in 1850. Another 2 men proposed but Rossetti declined them both.

She died on 29 December 1894 age 64.

Publication:

Rossetti’s first poems were written in 1842 and printed in the private press of her grandfather. In 1850, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne, she contributed seven poems to the Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ, which had been founded by her brother William Michael and his friends.

Women were idealised as mothers, while those who failed to meet expectations were censured as prostitutes with uncontrollable sexual desires. Women were excluded from some occupations and activities, but they entered new ones, for example authorship, teaching, and charity work. Working-class women still had to work to support themselves and their families, though the range of occupations available to them may have narrowed and some work, such as “sweated labour” in the textile trades, took place in the home. The concept of the respectable male “breadwinner”, who had the responsibility for providing financially for his entire family, was increasingly influential in this period. Consequently, women were frequently expected to give up their jobs when they got married.

Christina Rossetti had complicated views on female suffrage and equality. At times she used the Biblical idea of woman being inferior  to man as reason for maintaining the issues present at that time, while at others she argued for female representation in Parliament and spoke out against the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution. In many ways this shows her to be a particularly complex thinker about the position of women in society and it is certainly a concern which she comes back to time and again in her poetry. Her views may not always be ‘radical’ as such, but they are usually far from conservative and often questioning, challenging and potentially subversive.