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This book re-conceives Christina Rossetti's poetic identity by exposing the androcentric bias inherent in the histories of the Rossetti family and of Pre-Raphaelitism, by turning new attention to the Rossetti women, and by reconstituting a female and religious community for Rossetti's writing. Drawing on extensive archival research, Mary Arseneau investigates how Rossetti's religious faith sustains her poetic practice and authorizes her cultural and aesthetic critique; the result is a re-evaluation and re-contextualization of the whole range of Rossetti's writing.
List of contents
Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations List of Illustrations Introduction Biography and Bias: Envisaging a Female Community Recovering a Literary Community 'But I Have Said Enough': Maude and the Poetics of Reserve Harmonizing Goblin Market and Other Poems Interpreting The Prince's Progress 'Had Such a Lady Spoken for Herself': Confronting the Legacy Selected Bibliography Index
About the author
MARY ARSENEAU is Associate Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She has published numerous essays on Christina Rossetti, the Rossetti family, the Pre-Raphaelites, and John Keats. Together with Antony H. Harrison and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, she is co-editor of The Culture of Christina Rossetti: Female Poetics and Victorian Contexts.
Summary
This book re-conceives Christina Rossetti's poetic identity by exposing the androcentric bias inherent in the histories of the Rossetti family and of Pre-Raphaelitism, by turning new attention to the Rossetti women, and by reconstituting a female and religious community for Rossetti's writing.
Additional text
'This is an impressive book: carefully researched, beautifully written, and eloquently argued. It will be an important contribution to studies in Victorian women's poetry and, more generally, Victorian literature and culture.' - Dr Alison Chapman, Department of English Literature, University of Glasgow
'Acknowledging her debt to feminist scholarship on Christina Rossetti in the introduction, Mary Arseneau announces her ambition to extend and revise aspects of the Victorian poet's familial, theological and literary heritage. Recovering Christina Rossetti owes its existence to Arseneau's wish to go beyond the usual conclusion that Rossetti's expression is at its best when she challenges and transgresses the strictures and boundaries of her patriarchal religious faith.' - Elisabeth Lamothe, Cercles Reviews
Report
'This is an impressive book: carefully researched, beautifully written, and eloquently argued. It will be an important contribution to studies in Victorian women's poetry and, more generally, Victorian literature and culture.' - Dr Alison Chapman, Department of English Literature, University of Glasgow
'Acknowledging her debt to feminist scholarship on Christina Rossetti in the introduction, Mary Arseneau announces her ambition to extend and revise aspects of the Victorian poet's familial, theological and literary heritage. Recovering Christina Rossetti owes its existence to Arseneau's wish to go beyond the usual conclusion that Rossetti's expression is at its best when she challenges and transgresses the strictures and boundaries of her patriarchal religious faith.' - Elisabeth Lamothe, Cercles Reviews
