By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Christina Rossetti (1830-94) wrote many sonnets, so it should come as little surprise that, like Keats and Wordsworth before her, she wrote what we might call a ‘meta-sonnet’, about the virtues and values of the sonnet. Here, Rossetti focuses on the ‘first Love’ in her life, her mother.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Spring’ is not one of Christina Rossetti’s best-known poems, but it is a fine poem about springtime. Rossetti (1830-94) celebrates the new life that the spring brings, as all of the ‘hidden life’ beneath the earth ‘springs’ into action, bursting forth upon the scene. Here is ‘Spring’:
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Goblin Market’ is probably the most famous poem Christina Rossetti (1830-94) wrote. It’s a long narrative poem about two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, and how Laura succumbs to temptation and tastes the fruit sold by the goblins of the poem’s title. In this post, we offer a very short analysis of ‘Goblin Market’ in terms of its language, metre, meaning, and themes.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Christina Rossetti (1830-94) is primarily known for a handful of classic poems, but she wrote more than a handful of great ones. Below we’ve selected ten of Rossetti’s finest poems and written a short paragraph introducing each of them.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is probably Christina Rossetti’s most famous poem, though not the one that’s most recognisable as being a Christina Rossetti poem. Indeed, many who are familiar with it perhaps don’t realise that it is a poem; it’s better-known as a song, or carol, these days.
But then that’s appropriate given that Christina Rossetti first published it under the title ‘A Christmas Carol’, and the poem has a songlike quality to it. Here is ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, to which we’ve appended some words of analysis.