A Reading of Christina Rossetti’s Poems

If the terminology is any indication, devotional poetry is at risk of being recognized narrowly as poetry of worship. Must devotional poetry be necessarily devotional in its aspect? Understandably, the concept of religious (or spiritual) devotion varies to the degree that the concept of ‘God’ varies between religions and people. Spiritual feelings are, after all, private ones and privately experienced.

Change is the most common of human experience – often the most painful. It occurs in almost every aspect of life: death, relocation, separation, growing up. The need for something permanent where everything is bound to change resembles the comfort that home offers – when home is not strictly a location. It is the thought of home, of being able to return to something (person or place), that really enables one to put up with things. When there is no person or place though, where does one go to? What is termed ‘devotional poetry’ is perhaps written out of the need to answer this question.

Recognizing the lack of external sources, one may try to look for consolation and assurance from within oneself. But what if there is nothing to be found there either? If one can rely on oneself at all, what one finds within is most likely spiritual strength –or something resembles it. It must, however, be something in the nature of blind faith. It cannot be anything pertaining to reason, because everything that can be reasoned must be subject to change. Religion may help in this case, but like with things that require faith, religion often demands that one asks no question. Of course religions permit arguments where religious conventions are seen to interfere with ways of life, but every religion functions on the basis of certain assumptions. One cannot believe if one questions the basic assumptions. The society of Victorian England is a classic case study. This was a period that saw one of the basic assumptions of Christianity dislodged. The upshots are palpable enough.

It is possible that loneliness develops from this lack of foundation in which to place one’s faith. This is not to speak of loneliness as an easy case of being without companion, but the condition of lacking a fundamental thing. The analogies are many and (often) clichéd: a drifting boat, a lost child. What these likenesses communicate, however banal, is the sense of fear that accompanies feelings of loneliness. Now that the fear exists, how does one get rid of it? One way, probably, is to console oneself with the thought of mortality: everything will end, so that it really doesn’t matter how one lives one’s life – if one does it in fear or in joy. The thought is consoling because what happens after death is really beyond one’s grasp, no matter from what point of view one tries to argue it. But with the recognition of mortality, one must necessarily recognize that there is something more powerful than oneself, to the authority of which one is subject. The recognition of that authority is comforting because - whatever freedom that authority threatens to take away – it allows one to feel that one is not lost after all. The sense of relief is not unlike that one finds in daily routines. The knowledge that death must occur is, in this sense, a comfort. This seems to be the thought, which runs through several of Rossetti’s poems.

Since spiritual feelings that are often the basis of devotional poetry are essentially private, when looking at the poems, it is necessary to consider the circumstances in which they are written.
Rossetti’s biographical information suggests that religion has a limiting effect on her life. Her religious interests were the reason for her not marrying. If religion had at all been a source of comfort, it also caused her unhappiness. On the other hand, to let go of religion and resorted to marriage perhaps didn’t feel reassuring enough. Marriages, after all, like any other occurrence in life is not permanent – certainly less so than religion. In the presence of faith, religion carries the suggestion of permanence, but one may argue that it is precisely the presence of faith, which creates the impression of permanence. Those with faith will not acknowledge the argument (indeed, they cannot, because this will mean going against the very basis on which their belief is founded).

Yet if Rossetti considers death as recourse, then perhaps secretly, she did question her faith. Perhaps she did – like many do – question whether faith worth a chance of fleeting happiness. Perhaps she opted for faith and ideally the questioning must, at that point, have been stopped. If the questioning persisted, death may have seemed a comfortable option.
Unlike religious conventions which are abstract in nature, death is an observed fact and requires less faith to acknowledge. The speaker in “May” admits that although she cannot explain how death comes about (“I cannot tell you how it was, but this I know: it came to pass…”). All living things are fleeting, even in their non-existence:

As yet the poppies were not born Between the blades of tender corn; The last egg had not hatched as yet, Nor any bird foregone its mate.
… Like all sweet things it passed away… (Rossetti 235)

Meanwhile, the travel in “Up-Hill” is an analogy of life. The traveler travels through life seeking out a final “resting place” because the journey has left her “travel-sore and weak” (65). The poem offers the consolation that the journey will come to an end, that at the final point, there will be waiting a resting place and “beds for all who come”.
In “Dream-Land”, Rossetti writes: Rest, rest, a perfect rest Shed over brow and breast; … Rest, rest at the heart's core Till time shall cease: Sleep that no pain shall wake. (21)

The sleep that the speaker refers to is valued as if it’s a gift. To Rossetti, as “Passing Away” suggests too, death is “(her) love, sister, spouse” (67). Considering the circumstances, to live, for Rossetti, requires compromise between the needs of her flesh and spirit. She would have been glad to evade the necessity of struggling and of having to validate her life choice, while the process of validation is complicated because she found herself the only judge. If death is a religion, she might find comfort in what it offers.


Works Cited:

“Dream-Land.” Rossetti, Christina. Poetry and Prose. Ed. Jan Marsh. London: Everyman, 1994. 21.

“May.” Rossetti, Christina. Poetry and Prose. Ed. Jan Marsh. London: Everyman, 1994. 235.

“Passing Away.” Rossetti, Christina. Poetry and Prose. Ed. Jan Marsh. London: Everyman, 1994. 67

“Up-Hill.” Rossetti, Christina. Poetry and Prose. Ed. Jan Marsh. London: Everyman, 1994. 65

The Varieties of Religious Experience. James, William. London: Penguin, 1985. 112 –425.

“The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti.” McGann, Jerome J. Victorian Women Poets: Contemporary Critical Essays. Ed. Joseph Bristow. London: Macmillan, 1995. 167 – 188.