CHRISTINA ROSSETTI: FURTHER READING

Bibliography

Addison, Jane. "Christina Rossetti Studies, 1974-1991: A Checklist and Synthesis." Bulletin of Bibliography 52, no. 1 (March 1995): 73-93.

Biographical sketch and extensive bibliography of writings about Rossetti from 1974 to 1991.

Biographies

Battiscombe, Georgina. Christina Rossetti: A Divided Life. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981, 233 p.

Focuses on the conflict between the outward calm of Rossetti's life and her internal emotional turmoil.

Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Literary Biography. New York: Viking Penguin, 1995, 640 p.

Complete, feminist interpretation of Rossetti's life.

Criticism

Adlard, John. "Christina Rossetti: Strategies of Loneliness." Contemporary Review 221, no. 1280 (September 1972): 146-50.

Analysis of "Goblin Market" focusing on the adult themes of the poem.

Armstrong, Isobel. "Christina Rossetti: Diary of Feminist Reading." In Women Reading Women's Writing, edited by Sue Roe, pp. 115-37. Brighton, England: Harvester Press, 1987.

Discusses Rossetti's place in the literary canon from a feminist perspective.

Bald, Marjory A. "Christina Rossetti." In Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 233-66. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1923.

Discusses the literary sources of Rossetti's poetry and examines her use of symbol, allegory, myth, and dream.

Bloom, Harold. "Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828), Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)." In Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds, pp. 433-39. New York: Warner Books, 2002.

Comparison of aspects of Rossetti's verse with that of her brother, the poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Bristow, Joseph. "'No Friend Like a Sister'?: Christina Rossetti's Female Kin." Victorian Poetry 33, no. 2 (summer 1995): 257-82.

Examines the conflicted nature of sisterhood in Rossetti's work.

Charles, Edna Kotin. Christina Rossetti: Critical Perspectives, Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 1985, 187 p.

Reviews and explains the scholarship and criticism of Rossetti's works from 1860 to 1982.

D'Amico, Diane. Christina Rossetti: Faith, Gender and Time. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2000, 200 p.

Examines the role that Rossetti's faith and gender had on her writing.

Flowers, Betty S. "'Had Such a Lady Spoken For Herself': Christina Rossetti's 'Monna Innominata'." In Rossetti to Sexton: Six Women Poets at Texas, edited by and introduced by Dave Oliphant, pp. 13-29. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, 1992.

Suggests that Rossetti needed to distinguish her "self" from the fictional versions of women created by Dante, Petrarch, and her brother.

Forman, H. Buxton. "Christina Gabriela Rossetti." In Our Living Poets: An Essay in Criticism, pp. 231-53. London, England: Tinsley Brothers, 1871.

Early critical assessment of Rossetti as a significant contributor to "real poetry" and the history of female literature.

Garlitz, Barbara. "Christina Rossetti's Sing-Song and Nineteenth-Century Children's Poetry." PMLA 70, no. 3 (June 1955): 539-43.

Discusses Sing-Song in relation to other nineteenth-century children's poetry.

Gilbert, Pamela K. "'A Horrid Game': Woman as Social Entity in Christina Rossetti's Prose." English 41, no. 169 (spring 1992): 1-23.

Provides representative examples of Rossetti's neglected longer prose works, including Maude and Speaking Likenesses, and shows how Rossetti critiqued the treatment of women during her era despite the fact that she did not challenge the social order.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. "The Aesthetics of Renunciation." In The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, pp. 539-80. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.

Examines the work of Rossetti and that of other female poets, including Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf, in the context of the argument that women writers have experienced difficulty in sustaining an image of themselves as poets.

Harrison, A. H., guest editor. Victorian Poetry: Centennial of Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894 32, no. 3-4 (autumn-winter): 1994.

Special edition of the journal devoted to Rossetti.

Holt, Terence. "'Men sell not such in any town': Exchange in Goblin Market." Victorian Poetry 28, no. 1 (spring 1990): 51-68.

Examines the language and metaphors about economics in "Goblin Market," arguing that the discourse of the marketplace is designed to stress that the market is not the province of women.

Maxwell, Catherine. "The Poetic Context of Christina Rossetti's 'After Death'." English Studies 76, no. 2 (March 1995): 143-55.

Offers a close reading of "After Death" that attempts to identify the work's literary merits and not merely understand it in terms of the author's biography or status as a woman.

Melnyk, Julie. "The Lyrical 'We': Self-Representation in Christina Rossetti's 'Later Life'." Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 11 (fall 2002): 43-61.

Analysis of the poem "Later Life" that demonstrates one way that Christianity enabled Rossetti to write poetry within and against the Romantic lyric and to find a more satisfying representation of the self.

Palazzo, Lynda. "Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market': The Sensual Imagination." Unisa English Studies 26, no. 2 (September 1988): 15-20.

Considers "Goblin Market" to be the work of a poet attempting to solve problems caused by the change from Romantic to Victorian values.

——. Christina Rossetti's Feminist Theology. London: Palgrave, 2002, 184p.

Depicts Rossetti's prose as foreshadowing later feminist theories.

Parker, Emma. "A Career of One's Own: Christina Rossetti, Literary Success and Love." Women's Writing 5, no. 3 (1998): 305-28.

Argues that the themes of loss and longing in Rossetti's work relate less to love than to her ambitions and anxieties as a writer.

Rosenblum, Dolores. "Christina Rossetti: The Inward Pose." In Shakespeare's Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets, edited by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, pp. 82-98. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

Explores a "doubleness" of opposing themes in Rossetti's poetry, which the Rosenblum contends resulted from the restrictions of being a woman in Victorian England.

Senior, Claire. "Maiden-Songs: The Role of the Female Child in Christina Rossetti's Speaking Likenesses." Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 11 (fall 2002): 62-94.

Discusses the suppression of sexuality and energy of girls in Rossetti's work.

Sickbert, Virginia. "Christina Rossetti and Victorian Children's Poetry: A Maternal Challenge to the Patriarchal Family." Victorian Poetry 31, no. 4 (winter 1993): 385-410.

Examines Rossetti's construction of parenthood and childhood in her children's poetry.

Smulders, Sharon. "Woman's Enfranchisement in Christina Rossetti's Poetry." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 34, no. 4 (winter 1992): 568-88.

Argues that much of Rossetti's poetry from the 1850s and 1860s explores the question of women's place in society and literature.

Wiesenthal, Christine. "Regarding Christina Rossetti's 'Reflection'." Victorian Poetry 39, no. 3 (fall 2001): 389-406.

Explores the indeterminacy and doubleness of Rossetti's poem "Reflection," which the critic says is a critique of gender ideology.

Woolf, Virginia. "I Am Christina Rossetti." In Collected Essays, pp. 54-60. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967.

An essay originally written in 1930 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Rossetti's birth that offers a positive assessment of the poet's work.

OTHER SOURCES FROM GALE:

Additional coverage of Rossetti's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Vol. 51; Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults, Vol. 4; British Writers, Vol. 5; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 35, 163, 240; DISCovering Authors; DISCovering Authors: British Edition; DISCovering Authors: Canadian Edition; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-studied Authors and Poets; DISCovering Authors, 3.0; Exploring Poetry; Literature and its Times Supplement, Ed. 1; Literature Resource Center; Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vols. 2, 50, 66; Poetry Criticism, Vols. 10, 14; Reference Guide to English Literature, Ed. 2; Something About the Author, Vol. 20; Twayne's English Authors; World Literature Criticism; and Writers for Children.