Poetry by Christina Rossetti

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, in "Bird Raptures", the nightingale theme, which carries through another Rossetti poem, shows that Rossetti not only loved the freedom imagery attached to birds but also loved the contrasts between various birds and between birds and humans. The author points out that, in "A Hope Carol", Rossetti relates a rather simplistic and universal desire to connect to nature and to be alert to the sounds of nature so that she might know where the bird is and when the song is being sung. The paper concludes that birds have more than feathers and a beak; they have faces and with their lovely songs, reach into people's hearts especially, the heart of Victorian poet Christina Rossetti.

Table of Contents
"Goblin Market" - Christina Rossetti
"No, Thank You, John" - Christina Rossetti
"May" - Christina Rossetti
"Song ['When I am Dead']" - Christina Rossetti
"Ode to a Nightingale" - John Keats
"Bird Raptures" - Christina Rossetti
"Odyssey" - Homer
"After Death" - Christina Rossetti
"Lady of Shalott" - Alfred Lord Tennyson
"A Ballad of Boding" - Christina Rossetti
"The Thread of Life" - Christina Rossetti
"A Hope Carol" - Christina Rossetti

From the Paper:

"How and why would all that luscious-sounding fruit harm the two maidens? "Who knows what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots?" Laura wondered. Who knows, the reader conjectures, what the strange little men really had in mind beyond just the tempting fruit. Roots that are both "hungry" and "thirsty" are roots that are in immediate need of something that may be unhealthy. But Lizzie was less prone to temptation than Laura; she covered her eyes so she couldn't even see the "little men"; one was hauling a basket, one a golden dish, but while Laura was curious, Lizzie was frightened, and "thrust a dimpled finger in each ear," shut her eyes and ran."

Sample of Sources Used:

• All Spirit. "A Hope Carol." The Poetry of Christina Rossetti. Retrieved 5 April, 2006, from http://www.allspirit.com.uk/rossetti.html#hope.
• All Spirit. "Bird Raptures" The Poetry of Christina Rossetti. Retrieved 5 April, 2006, from http://www.allspirit.com.uk/rossetti.html#bird.
• Crump. R. W. The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
• Keats, John. "Ode to a Nightingale." Bartleby. Retrieved 7 April, 2006, from http://www.bartleby.com/126/40.html.
• Lutwack, Leonard. Birds in Literature. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994.

More papers on Poetry by Christina Rossetti :

• Poem Review # 27897 : "The Theme of Death in Poems by Christina Rossetti"
• Analytical Essay # 65057 : "Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti"
• Analytical Essay # 47241 : "Gender, Desire, and Repression in "Goblin Market"

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