A comparison of the poetry ofChristina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson

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A Comparison of the Poetry of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dlokinson

byElizabeth Fleming Buck

Submitted in p a rtia l fulfillm ent of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in the College of Letters, Arts; and Scienees, @f the

University of Arizona {

1 9 3 3 1

Approved! s.Major adviser

‘h t* r / e , ' 9 J j vDate

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£ 9 7 ^ // 7-33/ /

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Outline and Index

IntroduetionA. Reasons for Interest In comparison . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Rank as wmen poets . 3. Contemporaries in England and America

3. Similar circumstances of lives4. Interest in same range of subjects5. poetry of opposite types-traditional and individual6. Proof that both types have qualities of lasting ap­

peal.B. Brief statement of plan for thesis S0. C ritical opinions about rank of each

1. Christina Rossetti*# rank as a poet , . . . . . .a. Appreciation by her contemporariesb. Earlier and la te r opinions as to respective

merit# of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina l##setti

o. Various opinions upholding her t i t l e to f i r s t place

3. Bally Dickinson*s rank as a poet . . . . . . . .a. Reasons for slower recognition than in case

of Christina Rossettib. Earlier opinions of her poetryo. Recent opinions as to her importance

3. Summary of c r i tic a l opinions . ..............................

a

e

10

D. Lives . . 101. Life of Christina Rossetti . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

a, Ita lian and English descentb. Stimulating environmento. Earliest-and la te r publications 4. Broken engagement o. Love for C.B.Cayley f . Secluded l i fe

3. Life of Emily Dickinson . . . . . .......................... 14a. Hew England backgroundb. Schooling and influence of Humphreyc. Mystery as to love a ffa ir 4. Withdrawal frcm societye. Correspondence with Higgins on about her poetryf . Finding of poetic mamecripte a f te r her death

I . Summary of introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

90536

1 Themes............... ..................- ............................ ... 30(Types of subject-matter and underlying ideas)1. nature

a. In Christina R ossetti's p o e try ..........................IS(1) Descriptions of poetic "Dream-world”(3) Traditional poetic and religious sym­

bolism . . . .b. In Bally Dickinson's poetry . . . . . . . . . 33

(1) Reflection of intimate knowledge(3) Individuality of Imagery and attitude

3. Lifea. In Christina R ossetti's poetry . . . . . . . . 35

(1) Traditional ideas as to "vanity” ofl i f e

(3) Satisfaction throigh sp iritu a l resig-b. In Emily Dickinson's p o e try ..............................S®

(1) Life as experiment - i ts paradoxes(3) Self-reliance for superiority to fate .

3. Lovea. In Christina R ossetti's poetry . . . . . . . . 31

(1) Unsatisfactoriness of earthly love(3) Traditional subject-matter in story-

poems of broken betrothals and re­ligious renunciation of love, and in "llonna Innominata” sonnet se­quence

b. In Bally Dickinson's p o e try ..............................37j l j Exaltation of human love

4. Religiona. In Christina R ossetti's p o e try ..........................4®

(1) Orthodox doctrines(2) Kinship with earlie r religious poets

b. In Emily Dickinson's poetry .............................. 4fIrreverent mischief Paradoxical conclusions

i . Death and Immortalitya. In Christina R ossetti's poetry ...................... S3

(1) Poetic veiling of death(2) Traditional ideas of Heaven

b. In Emily Dickinson's p o e try ..............................58(1) Realistic treatment of death(3) Unconventional ideas about Heaven6. Summary of themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651. Vocabulary

a. I® Christina R ossetti's poetry . . . . . . . . 65

I l l

(1) Conventional poetic diction(3) Familiar words of Bible and medieval days

b. In Emily Dickinson*e poetry . . . . . . . . . (1) Use of unhackneyed words (3) Wide range of vocabulary

a. fn^Christina Rossetti*s poetry . . . . . . .(1) Bseerative effect of similes(3) Symbolism and allegory of trad itional re­

ligious type ■ ' • 'b. In Bally Dickinson's poetry . . . . . . . . .

(1) Freshness and vigor of imagery(3) Importance of metaphors 8. Versification

a. In Christina R ossetti's poetry . . . . . . .. (1) Variety of trad itional metric forms

(3) Musical perfectionb. In Bully Dickinson's poetry . . . . . . . . .

Cl) Disregard for trad itional technique(3) Lyric Incisiveness

4. Summary of sty le . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . .

n

77

81

86

I I I Summary of thesis S7Bibliography

Christina Rossetti Bally Dlekinson •

8594

1

A Comparison of the poetry of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dleklneon

Introduction

Many women have been numbered amohg the followers ofpoetry but rarely have th e ir works long outlived them. LouisUntermeyer summarizes the history of women in poetry:

"In spite of four thousand singing years, antiquity and modernity have combined to establish only four women posts of the f i r s t rank. Greece produced one .... The medieval world...evoked one woman's sain tly and indubita­ble vo ice ....U n til th is generation, England and America could name but three women whose poetry had a speech... in eoetmon. The f i r s t of these - f i r s t in the esteem of her contemporaries - is already one with the Mid-Victor­ian wax-flowers, of which so much of her verse seems com­posed . . . .This leaves Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickin­son.*1

Most c r itic s agree with Untermeyer in giving f i r s t place tot ‘ ‘ •

Christina Rossetti among the English group of women poets and to Emily Dickinson among the American group. The hundredth anniversary of their b irth having passed, we may assume that sufficient time has elapsed for opinion to reach some degree of valid ity in i ts judgments concerning the ir poetry.

Strangely enough, these two foremost women poets of Eng­land and America were contemporaries, bom within five days of each other in December of 1830. In certain Important respects,

1 Untermeyer, Louis, "Colossal Substance," Saturday Review of Literature. 5:769, March 18, 1939.

the circumstances of th e ir lives were strikingly similar, and th e ir inter##*# •entered in much the same range of subjects.Yet the high poetlo ab ility of each expressed I ts e lf In poetry essentially unlike that of the other. The following comparison of th e ir poetry attempts to show as the basis of th is d lffe r- enee that in the main Christina Rossetti’s poetry follows the convention# of traditionalism, while Bally Dioklneon*s follows the promptings of her own individualism. Thu# these two op­posed type# of poetic expression are shown by the ir poetry to have p o ssib ilities of lasting appeal.

We shall note,. f i r s t , opinions of c ritic s as to the peetle rank of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dioklneon. Then w# shall eonetder the main facts of their lives as a background for the comparison of their poetry. This comparison w ill include such elements of their poetry as themes (types of treatment and un­derlying ideas): nature, l ife , love, religion, death and immor­ta li ty ; and styles vocabulary, imagery, and vers if teat Ion.

Christina Rossetti’s Rank as a poet

Recognition of Christina Rossetti’s poetic ab ility come quietly but surely. During her lifetim e, Algernon Swinburne and ®taund does# were among those who gave her poetry highest praise* Swinburne was outspoken in his admiration for many of her poemaj of "Passing away, eaith the World, passing away,* he is Quoted as having said that i t is "so much the noblest of

1

eaossd poemo in Englleh that non® is second*3- and that i t is*oao of the finest thingo ever w ritten .*3 His appreoiatibn ofhe? pootry was expressed also in the poem dedicating the vol-

i Century of lonndeli to her,9 in his "Ballad of Appeal toChristina G*. R ossetti,*4 and in the beautiful elegy "A UewYear*® Eve**S written a few days a fte r her death. Goss®, in ac r i tic a l review f i r s t published In 1893, wrote:

"I desire to pay no more than a fust tribu te of respect to one of the most .perfect poets of the a g e - ... to a w riter toward whom we may not unreasonably expect that students of English lite ra tu re in the twentyfourth cen­tury may look back as the c r itic s of Alexandria did to­ward Sappho and toward .Brinna,"6

Though appreciation of Christina R ossetti's poetry wasnever lacking, the general tendency u n til more recent yearswas to give to Elizabeth Barrett Browning f i r s t place amongEnglish women poets. (Mrs.Browning is , of course,"the f i r s t ofthese* referred to by Louis Untermeyer in the opening paragraphof th is th e s is .) William Sharp, fo r instance, writing in 1886considers that Christina Rossetti *ranked only second to Mrs.Browning as a poetess.*? At the same time, he points out;

"As an a r t is t , Miss Rossetti must rank above Mrs*Brown­ing, and only some# second to her in general position because her range is so much more lim ited.*8 * 1

1 Kent, Muriel, "Christina Rossetti; A Reconsideration,” Con- .® temporary Review. 38;759, December, 1930*8 More. Paul Eimer. Shelburne Essays. Third Series, p.136.} The Poems of Algernon 0. Swinburne, Vol.V, p,113.1 Ibid.., Vol.VI, pp.73-74.8 Ibid., Vol.VI, pp. 336-338. . '2 Gosse, Bimund, "Christina Rossetti," Century,34;813,June, 1893. " Sharp, William, "The Rossettis." Fortnightly Review, 45:438,. March 1, 1886.8 Ibid., p.429.

4

Rossetti joined in the popular acclaim of Mrs. Browning; with characteristic modesty, she wrote Mr. Patohett Martin (af­te r the publication of his opinion that she herself was "the greater lite ra ry a r t is t of the two*)$

"I doubt whether the woman is born, or for many a long day w ill, be born, who w ill balance, not to say outweigh,Mrs. Browning**3.

Later o ritio s , however, have been almost unantaene in placing Christina R ossetti's poetry above that of Mrs. Brown­ing, Virginia "Woolf says:

"Christina Rossetti mounts irre s is tib ly to the f i r s t place among English women poets, Elizabeth, so much more loudly applauded during her lifetim e, fa lls fur­ther and further behind.*3

A. Hamilton Thompson, In the Camteld^e History, of .Enplloh l i t -eratura. writes of Christina Rossetti:

"If she had less in tellectual foroe and a more confined range of subject than Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who certainly, by virtue of her more liberal sympathies makes an appeal to a wider audience, Christina Rossetti unquestionably had the advantage in melodiousness.**

William Hudson sums up Christina R ossetti's superior qualities:"She certainly exoelled her elder s is te r (Mrs.Browning)In pure imagination, in intensity of poetic vision, and very obviously in a l l the essentials of a rt."*

Glutton-Brook speaks of Christina R ossetti's having "a surerthough a quieter magic"* 5 than Mrs, Browning, and Eleanor Thomas

£ Stuart, Dorothy. Christina Rossetti, p.116,? Woolf, Virginia, The Second Common Reader, p.319,

..SgTfsh .XIIIt .ii* Ptiss# ...

5 035a i . ^ i l f l ^ ’sho

i-B iock?8A rthQr

5

concedes her * 8the palm for more consistently fine a r t.81 Mar­jo rie Bald, In makesprobably the moat detailed comparison of thp two and concludes that "Mrs. Browning was not, like Christina, a supreme poet.*8 We are ready to agree with William, Bon&t:

*?hore can be l i t t l e doubt today that Christina Rossetti wasapoet superior as an a r t is t to Elizabeth Barrett Broarn-

. Ing.*3 . v ' ■ ■ , • . ■I t must be admitted that there is la mtoh of Christina

RosoettVo poetry (ocpeolally the devotional verse) what More calls a "sweet monotony"j but her fame rests upon the remain­der of her work, of which Mors sayst

"And then, suddenly, out of th is sweet monotony, moved by some stronger, clearer breeze of inspiration, there sounds a strain of wonderful beauty and flawless per- . faction, unmatched in i ts own kind in English le t te r s .**

Dorothy Stuart also emphasises the importance of selection in order to recognize the rea l poetic ab ility of Christina Ros­s e t t i :

"If we make a small bouquet of Christina R ossetti’s moot beautiful songs and sonnets, we shall be constrained to acknowledge that within her own lim its no women-poet of the modem world can be found to equal her, and not an overwhelming number of .men;"5

Katherine Tynan (Mrs.Hinkson), whose youthful poetic effort# Miss Rossetti encouraged, states that she "stands head and shoulders above a l l other wesaen who have written English poet*

_ Eleanor,» William,^ ^ h it erature^ 7:134.

8 Stuart, Dorothy/Third Series, p.134. p.176.

#

rynj*1 and Virginia Moore, one of the younger Am or loan poets, goes back to Sappho to find a wanan poet'comparable to Chrio- tln a Hoasotti, saying that "from Sappho to Christina Rossetti, no woman wrote poetry of the f i r s t water."3 Arthur Waugh thinks that her

®art and vision, inextricably commingled, proclaim her the most perfect of a l l the English women poets, i f not indeed of a l l the women poets In the lite ra tu re of thoworld.#*

C ritics can hardly give higher praise than More, when he writesthat a volume of selections from her poetry

"would stand, in i t s own way, supreme in English l i t e r ­ature, - a s pure and fine an expression of the feminine genius as the world has yet heard.

Bally Dickinson*s Rank as a poet

Recognition of Emily Dickinson as holding f i r s t place among the women poets of America came much more slowly than did Christina RossattVs fame, and such a claim for hor is s t i l l disputed by some c r itic s . This slower recognition is partly because the f i r s t volume of Emily Diskinson*a poetry did not appear u n til about th irty years la te r than Christina Rossetti*s, while the la st volume was published only eight years ago; but i t is even more because of the unconventional nature of Emily Dickinson*0 poetry. Josephson says!

f

" It was a poetry as wildly free in Its Imagination, as primitive and pure in language, as widely divorced from conventional meters and images, as that of Blake, And the poet . . . was rated a l i t t l e mad by the lite ra ry pedantry."1

Because Christina Rossetti followed the line of trad ition in the form and thought of her poetry, ehe found a ready audi­ence. Emily Dickinson followed the promptings of her own in­dividuality and blazed a new t r a i l in the solitude of a l l pioneers, but her present influence is greater than that of Christina Rossetti.

Among the f i r s t to acknowledge Emily Dickinson's poeticab ility were Thomas Wentworth Riggins on and William DeanHowells. In the preface to the f i r s t edition of her poems,published in 1890, Hlgglnson calls attention to the

"flashes of wholly original and profound insight is le nature and life ; words and phrases exhibiting an ex­traordinary vividness of descriptive and Imaginative power,"*

Howells, in the "Editor's Study” of Harper's Magazine for Jan­uary, 1891, writes!

"If nothing else had come out of our l i f e but th is otrango poetry, we should feel that in the work of Emily Dickinson, America, or Hew England rather, had made a d istinctive addition to the lite ra tu re of the world."3

However, in 1915, professor Prank Pattee, In h is History of American Literature since 1870. wrote of Emily Diekinsen's poems! 1

1 Joeephson, Matthew.po rtra it of the A rtist as Amerlean.p .174.

881330, January, 1891.

s

"They are more oonoelte, vague jottings of a brooding mind, » crudely wrought, *.. colorless and for the most part life le ss . They reveal l i t t l e either of Emily Dickinson or of human l i f e generally. They should have boon allowed to perish as th e ir author in­tended.*1

In 18*1, Herman Foerster expressed as hie judgment in the Cam­bridge History of Amerloan Literature. *Her place in American le tte rs w ill be Inconspicuous but secure.*8 As la te as 1936, the thirteenth edition of the Encyolopedia ..Brita i^ ica •contain­ed only a mention, a cro*®^reference by way of oomparlson* to Emily Dickinson! •her name did not even appear in the Index.*3

One of the lite ra ry phenomena of recent times has been the amazing interest in Emily Dickins on1a poetry since 1934, when the email volumes, which had been printed separately in 1890, 1831, 1896, and 1914, were re-issued under the t i t l e of Complete Poems. Untermeyer eayes

•I t was not u n til forty years a fte r her death that she was recognised as one of the most original of American poets and, in some ways, the most remarkable woman poetsince Sappho.«4

This in terest was augmented by the appearance in 1939 of fa r­ther poems s and "her influence,» quoting Untermeyer again, •negligible at f i r s t , is now incalculable.*5 In various re­views of her poetry, he speaks of her as* •th is most original of women poets”? "the greatest woman poet of America*?® *th# 1

1 Pattee, Prank, A History of American lite ra tu re einoe 1W0._ P* 84*# ■ . •' . . ' ■

| ndd ., p .u .b Untermeyer, Louis, *A More Intimate Emily*, Saturday Review

of Literature. 9*363, January 7, 1933.

most gifted woman who ever wrote In America"; and "one ef the chief figures in our literature* ’the greatest woman poet of the English language."1 Josephs©* calls her "one of the true lyric geniuses of the age* the most naturally gifted ef American p o e t s , a n d McGregor Jenkins - "perhaps the great­est poet th is country ever produced."5 Conrad Aiken* himself a distinguished American poet, writes that she is "among the finest pests in the language*;4’ and Untermeyer quotes Martin Armstrong, an English poet, as sayingt

•Mr. Aiken calls Emily Dickinson’s poetry ’perhaps the finest by a woman in the English language. * 1 quarrel only with his ’perhaps.*"S

John Gould Fleteher, another American poet, states that she has become "inevitably ’the greatest woman poet of the English language’*?6 but Grant Knight in his recent book* AmericanLiterature and Culture, suggestss

"Possibly that tendency to ra te her the greatest of a l l woman poets in English is only a reaction to the extreme from a prior assessment."7

However, Ludwig Lewisohn seems to express the consensus of present opinion with regard to Emily Didkinson,when he says that she is "one of the very few great women poets of a l l l i t -

1 Untermeyer, Louis, "Thoughts after a Century," Saturday He-. X i J S : . .5 Jenkins, McGregor, E ^W b lo k in so n .% 1 ^ p.37.z Aiken, Conrad, "Emily Dioklnson." Dial. 75:508. Anrll. 1934.5 Untermeyer, Louis, Modem American Poetry, p.36.6 Fletcher, John Gould. "Woman and Poat.» Saturday "Review of 9 L iterature. Is78, August 30,' 1934.7 Knight, Grant, American Literature and Culture, p.308.

10 /

Additional c r i t ic a l opinions ao to the poetic rank of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson could be given) but probably sufficient evidence has been presented to upheld the t i t l e s of foremost women poets of England and America, which they have received. As v?e have seen, some c r itic s con­sider Christina Rossetti the greatest of modern women poets* but th is , judgment is balanced by other c r itic s who make a sim ilar claim for Emily Dickinson, le can only conclude that the different poetic qualities of each have fa ir ly .equal pos­s ib i l i t ie s of lasting appeal.

' Lives

Before beginning the ecmparlscn of the poetry of Chris­tin a Rossetti and Emily Dickinson, we shall describe briefly the lives of these two women poets. Knowledge of an author*b l i f e is usually helpful in understanding his writings. There is additional in terest In the facts of the lives of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson because they were contemporaries, with a sea between) the ir lives were strikingly similar la oexae respects? and they wrote poetry of very different types, though dealing with much the seme range of subjects. Prom 1

1 Lewisohn, Ludwig, Expression in America, p.363.

n

the following accountb of their lives can he seen some of the factors which contributed to the sim ilarity in themes and the dissim ilarity in the treatment of these themes, which charac­te rizes th e ir poetry. •

Life of Christina Rossetti3-

Christina Georgina Rossetti was bom December 5, 1830, in London, of Ita lian and English parentage. Her father, a g if t­ed man deeply interested In poetry, especially that of Dante, had been exiled from llaples because of his part in an agita­tion for a constitution. He was a man of lib e ra l beliefs in relig ion as well as politico! a Roman Catholic by b irth , he became an anti -e le r le a l1st but remained somewhat of a mystic. Her mother's father also belonged to an Ita lian family of po­e tic g ifts ; hie wife was English and a devout member of the Anglican Church. Christina's mother was a woman of consider­able in tellectu al ab ility , personal charm, and s tr ic t piety (a member of the Churoh of England, as was her mother), who was completely devoted to her family and in turn adored by them, particularly Christina, the youngest of the four child­ren. She directed the education of her children, Christina and Maria never attending school.

The family was far from being "well off" financially.

The following books furnish the most helpful material about the l i f e of Christina Rossetti$

Stuart, Dorothy, ______________Thoms, Eleanor, Ch^lsting. Georgina Rossett i .Christina Rossetti*s Poatioal Works. Memoir by Dm.M.Rossetti, family Letters of Christina G.Rossetti. (Edited by

A e it VP S 0 u w X #W.M.Rossetti)

13

though the father published several books on Dante In addition to four volumes of hie own poems and taught Ita lian In King's College, London. They lived in rather shabby surroundings In a crowded section of London and had a decided disregard for "show"; but their home was a meeting place for expatriated Ita lians and others of creative ab ility along various lines, so that i t was an a r t is t ic a lly stimulating atmosphere In which the children grew up. Marla Francesca, the eldest, made a careful study of the Divine Comedy, entitled The Shadow of Dante, and also published an Ita lian grammar? but in la te r l ife , she withdrew from a l l other ac tiv ities to join an Anglo- Catholic sisterhood. Dante Gabriel was the most famous member of the family; achieving success in two arts , he was "honored*• as is said upon his grave cross ~ ”among painters as a paint­er and among poets as a poet.®1 William Michael was well known also, because of his c r i t ic a l writings on art and l i t e r ­ature.

Christina wrote verse almost from infancy; when she was seventeen, her grandfather printed upon hie l i t t l e private press a volume of sixty six pages - Verses by Christina Ros­s e t t i . dedicated to her mother - containing poems she had . written since the age of twelve* From th is time on, poems of her appeared rather frequently in magazines, with the ea rli­est printed in her brothers' short lived Pre-Raphaelite publi­cation, The Germ. The f i r s t volume of collected poems appear-

1 Family Letters of Christina G. Rossetti. (Mlted by W.M.ROO- e e tt i) , opposite p.144.

IS

od in 1863, followed by six other books of vorae (tvo addition­a l volumes were issued a fte r her death) and nine of prose (us­ually .religious meditations and devotions), Theoo bocks,rrero published at intervals of a ferr years throughout tho root of her l ife , and from them she received slight but very welcome financial returns* Her poetry was appreciated by many of her contemporaries, but she was as quiet and unassuming about her writing as about a l l else pertaining to herself.

When Christina was about nineteen, she became engaged to Jem as Coll ins on, a rather unimportant member of the gifted group of young a r t is ts comprising the "Pre-Raphaelite Brother­hood. e Collins on had changed from the Anglican faith to the Roman Catholic, but re-entered the Church of England before Christina agreed to marry him. When he decided, a short time afterward, to return to the Catholic Church, their engagement was broken. This, according to her brother, #struck a stag­gering blow at Christina Roseetti*o peace of mind on the very threshold of womanly life , and a blow from which she did net fu lly recover for years.*1

The next few years.Christina spent in assisting Mrs.Ros­s e t t i with schools opened In the hope of adding to the family income, decreased beeauee of the father*s fa lling eyesight in 1851 and death several years la ter . Christina's health was very f r a i l and th is , added to her naturally re tiring disposi­tion, made her quite w illing to give up such efforts when her

I

1 1,01'e' p -l u lof Memoir by

u

brother William was. able to. provide for the family. During th is earlie r period began her acquaintance with Charles Bagot Cayley, an: u,w»£Ltily scholar engaged in translations of Haute and other classics, whom she grew to love devotedly.For some reason, perhaps the lack of orthodox religious con­victions on his part, his offer of marriage was not accepted, but the ir friendship remained unbroken u n til his death on her birthday, 1883,

There were few events of any importance in the la t te r part of her l ife . She made two short tr ip s to the continent with her mother and brother in 1861 and 1865; in 1871 she was seriously i l l ; the other happenings resulted from the affec­tionate care she bestowed upon her family, le r l i f e was like that ®f a member of a sisterhood in i ts seclusion and i t s scrupulous regard for religious observances; striving to be worthy of Heaven and yearning for i ts joys replaced interest in the present l i fe . After her mother** death in 1886, her deoline was marked; following a long illness from eanoer, she died on December 39, 1894, In London, where she had pass­ed almost her entire l i f e .

Life of Bally Bloklnaon1

Emily Elisabeth Dickinson was bom December 10, 1830, in

The following books provide the beet material on the l i f e of Emily Dickinson;

Blanch 1,Martha Di@klneon.Llfe and Letters of Bally Dickinson. Taggard, Genevieve, The Life and Hind of Emily Dickinson. P o lll t t , Josephine, Emily Dickinson - The Human Backs

of Her Poetry.Emily

asasft.Letters of

Edited by Mabel Loomis Todd,Dleklneon, (Hew and enlarged edition, 1931)

%#

Amherst, Massaotmeette. Her father belonged to a well known Hew England family, "leadero in town and ohuroh, . . . s tr ic t and unoompromlslng in the ir p ie ty.*1 He was one of the fore­most men of Amherst, a prominent lawyer, trustee and treasur­er of Amherst College, which his father had been influential in founding. Hie dominating personality, stern disposition, and habitual reserve caused his children, Dully, Lavlnia, and Austin, to regard him almost with awe. Emily was devoted to her father, although her impulsive nature and independent mind often fe lt the oheek of his restraining Influence. The mother seems to have been l i t t l e more than a gentle Shadow as far as her influence upon Dally lo concerned.

Surrounded by the in tellectual and religious atmosphere of a Hew England college town and tho beauty of i ts surround­ing oointry. Daily spent her girlhood. Her father was not in favor of much study for her and even discouraged th# read­ing of anything other than the Bible; but she was allowed to attend Mount Holyoke Seminary for several terms (where she re­belled against Mary Lyons1 Biritan ideas), besides the local Amherst Academy. In the Academy, she was greatly stimulated by the b rillia n t young principal, Leonard Humphrey, who seems to have recognized her as yet undeveloped poetic genius. His sudden death le ft her feeling bereft of the inspiration and guidance his presence had meant for her.

A la te r experience which had an even more profound ef-

1 Letters of Daily Dickinson. Introduction by Mrs.Todd,p.XXVIII.

16

foot upon her is known rather from i ts reflection in her po­etry than from any defin ite de ta ils beyond the fact that she loved for the reminder of l i f e a man whom circumstances pre^ vented her marrying. Various attempts have been made to re­move the mystery - the lover has been * identified* as:George Gould, Amherst student, who became a m inister;1 Major Edwart Hunt, husband of Emily’s childhood friend, Helen Fisko ( la te r Mrs,Helen Hunt Jackson);1 * 3 4 Charles Wa&ewevth, prominent Philadelphia minister,3 or someone else^ - or no one at a l l*5 * * 8 Major Hunt and Br.Wadsworth were already married; in the oas© of George Gould, the barrier is assumed to have been Opposi­tion on the part of Emily’s father.

During her early twenties, Emily made a few short v is its to Boston and Springfield, and a six weeks * t r ip to Washing­ton (where her father was a member of Congress) and Philadel­phia; ten years la te r there was a tr ip to Cambridgeport and to Boston for the purpose of having her eyes treated. Mean­time, Emily had quietly withdrawn more and more from a l l con­tac t with people except her own family and that of her bro­ther Austin, whose home was "Just a hedge away,* and a very few Intimate friends. Even with these friends, intercourse

1 Taggard, Genevieve, The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson.3 P o lll t t , Josephine, Emily Dickinson - The Human Background* Of her Poetry.4 tfntermeyer, Louis, * Emily Dickinson, * Saturday Review of Lit­

erature. 6tll69, July 5, 1930.4 Sugden, Emily, * Emily Diokineet£ Saturday Review of Lltera-_ ture. 7:138, September 13, 1930.8 Todd, Mabel L., "Wise Taggard’s Emily,* Saturday Review of

Literature. 7:99, September 6, 1930.

If

was carried on mainly through le tte rs , tiny notes, b its of her own poetry, and l i t t l e g ifts - usually flowers. This seclu­sion, behind the shielding hedge around the brick mansion in which she was born and i ts old fashioned garden, continued throughout the rest of her l i f e .

About the time the Civil War began, she started really to w rite poetry, though with the utmost secrecy. The next year she ventured to write Thomas Wentworth Higginson, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, asking his opinion of several poems she enclosed. He was at f i r s t only mildly interested - too con­servative for more than cautious praise of these unusual compo­sitions; but their correspondence continued, and Emily revealed in le tte rs , to him the strong individuality of her poetio nature which would not conform to trad itional standards.

Her father died suddenly of apoplexy, her mother became a helpless invalid and lingered =thuo for eight years before her death. One a fte r another, members of the loved group of family and friends died. Her thoughts beoamo increasingly centered upon the mystery of death and the l i f e to come. One day, she saw «a great darkness coming" and fainted - th e .doctor thought nervms prostration the erne#. Two years of semi-invalidism followed, ended by her death May 15, 1886, in the house where she was bom. After her death, her s is te r found the manu­scrip ts of the hundreds of poems, almost a l l un titled and many with several variations of wording, which were afterwards pub­lished.

le

In th is introductory part of the thesis, an attempt has been made to establish the importance of Christina Rossetti and Stilly Dickinson in the history of poetry and to show their fa ir ly equal standing as foremost women poets of England and America, The main circumstances of their lives have also been given, as background for the comparison of th e ir poetry. Be­fore we leave the discussion of their lives, i t may be well to sum up the factors which most affected their poetry. Both Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson were greatly influenced by their father#, but In the case of Christina, the influence was one of encouragement is her following of the family trad i­tion of poetic composition, while Emily’s father discouraged even the reading of lite ra tu re and much more the attempt to w rite i t . Beth of them passed almost the ir in tire lives in the same surroundingss Christina, living in London, had l i t ­t le close contact with nature? Emily, in the town of Amherst, spent many hours in her garden. Christina accepted unques- tionlngly the orthodox Anglican fa ith , but Emily was independ­ent in religion as well as in other ways. Christina’s poetry was published from her early youth, that of Emily only a fte r her death. Both of them were prevented from marrying the men they loved and were deeply grieved by th is and other Borrows. Both of them withdrew more and more into seclusion; gradually the consideration of death and immortality became for both of the® the center of th e ir existence. As far as outer events are concerned, the kind of »chronology* Gamaliel Bradford made for Emily Dickinson*# l ife seems equally appropriate for

that of Christina Rossatti:Born In Amherst, Massachusetts, December 10, 1330;Lived In Amherst;Died in Amherst, May 15, 1888.*

. , Bmbie

To one who has road about the secluded lives of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson, i t comes as no surprise that the peetry of each of them Is concerned mainly with the dhroni- eling of the inner l i f e . With the exception of a very few poems reflecting contemporary events, their poetry arises from th e ir own joys, sorrows, and hopes. The charm of nature, the mystery of l i fe , the deep suffering of unfu lfilled love, the appeal of religion, the solace of death and immortality, - these were for each of them the great re a litie s and form the constantly recurring themes of their poetry. But in types of subject matter and in underlying ideas, we find the divergent influences of traditionalism and individualism which character­ize Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson, and which, as we shall see la te r, are even more evident in th e ir style than in th e ir themes.

nature in Christina Rossetti** Poetry

Mature in Christina Rossetti*© poetry is seen through the eyes of poetic imagination and religious meditation rather than close observation. Except for her in terest in tropical

* Bradford, Gamaliel, “Portraits of Amorloan Women - VI EmilyDickinson,« Atlantic Monthly. 134$316, August, 1919.

19

so

fru its ("Goblin Market’’1 atxl "The Dead City,"* for example)

and in email animals ("Tnllight Calm"3), the aspeets of bs» ture she portrays belong either to the conventional poetio or religious tradition? but with these uoual elements ohe produces a peculiarly beautiful impraesion of the charm of nature.

A sort of "Dream-world* of nature furnishes the setting for much of her poetry. I t is a world of "greenwoods far- away,"* of "rippled spring* and "silvery weeping willow tre e,"5 of "cool twilight winds* and "shadowy branches,"6 and "a sense of freshness through the a i r .«? The sounds are - in keeping with the sooneoi ’’the dreamy.sound of distant sheep b e lls,"8 "the nightingale that sadly sings,"8 and the "sweet sweet sound of d istant waters."10 The use Christina Rossetti makes of these rather conventional poetio settings produces in some poems an Impression of hushed sensuous delight - as in "Dream-Love®(only tho f i r s t two stanzas are quoted):

lapped in the tender ligh t:White lambs eome grazing White doves oome building there?And round about him The May-bushes are white.

Young Love lie s sleepin In May-time of the year Among the l i l ie s ,

.gSHfla* P'1 ff"p.39? f f .("The Three Runs”) p.13.'"In the Willow Shade") p,40S. "The Rovioe") p.108."An Old World Thicket") p,64. "Wishes") p.104."Dream Land*) p.393."For Advent") p.117.

SI

Soft moas the 'p illow For oh a softer oheeki Broad loaves oast shadck?Upon the heavy eyes:There winds and watersGrow lu lled and scarcely speak;There twilight lingers _The longest in the skies.1

In ether poems, the mood is one of holy quiet - as in "Whitsun Eve:"

The white dove oooeth in her downy nest.Keeping her young ones warm beneath her breast:The white moon ealleth through the oool clear sky.Screened by a tender mist In passing by:The white rose buds, with thorns upon Its stem, i l l the more preoiouo and more dear for them:The stream shines silver i s the tufted grass.The white clouds scarcely dim i t oa they pass;Deep in the valleys l i ly cups are white.They send up incense a l l the holy night.Our souls are white, made clean in Blood bnoe shed:White blessed Angels watch around cur bed:- 0 spotless Lamb of God, s t i l l keep us so.Thou who wert bom for uo in time of snow.*

She can write also poems of almost medieval simplicity in the irtreatment of nature, such as "Spring Quiet:"

Gone were but the Winter,Gene were but the Spring,I would go to a covert Where the birds sing;Where in the whitethorn Singeth a thrush And a robin sings In the holly-bunh.Full of fresh scents Are the budding boughs Arohing high over A oool green house;Full of sweet scents,And whispering a ir

1 C hristina^BossettV s P oetlea l Works, p.313.

3#

TThioh oayeth softly:*W# spread no .snare?•Hers dwell In safety,Here dwell alone.With a clear stream AM a rnoeny stone.’Here tho sun ahlneth Most ohadlly;Here is heard an echo Of the far sea.Though far off i t b e .’l

Evidence that the nature in her poetry ib taken from poetic trad ition is found also in her symbolical use of na­ture, generally with a religious application. Aspects of nature are for her “Mirrors of l i f e and Death,* *® as she ex­

plains in the poem of that t i t l e . The rose and the l i ly are the flowers which appear most often in her poetry; her broth­er, William'Michael Rossetti, said:

. *Ohrietina sang often - possibly too often - the praises of the rose; she regarded i t not merely in i ts own beauty, but as the symbol of love, whether constru­ed as deep human affection or as union with the Divine.The l i ly stood with her (as with so many another) for f a i th .**

Biblical phrases of nature symbolism often form the basis of her devotional poems, as “Consider the l i l i e s . T h e beauty of nature, fleeting and subject to decay, she uses again and again as symbol for the f ra il ty of earthly life* the second and third stanzas of “Days of Vanity* may be quoted as typical of many poems:

1 Christina R ossetti’s poetical Works, p.103.* t a i l . , 5 .393 f f . ,% IMA., (note on poem “Queen Rose") p.478.+ Ibid., p.138.

83

A flower that fadeth,Fruit the tree aheddeth.Trackless bird that f lte th ,Suimar time b rie f ,- Falling of the le a f ,- Such is l i f e that dieth.A scent exhaling.Snow waters fa iling .Morning dew that drleth,A windy b last,Lengthening shadows cast.Such is l ife that d ie th .1

However, in the oantiole, 8All Thy Works praise Thee, 0 Lord, A Processional of Creation;*3 nature i ts e lf seems "His crea­ture* rather than merely *of the World* (in contrast with the s p ir i t) , as in many poems.

Hature in Emily Dickinson* s poetry

Nature in Emily Dickinson* o poetry is mainly that of her own garden, a result of close companionship and intimate know­ledge. Brown calls Emily Dickinson an *entranced cousin ef Fabre, *& saying that she made

"more than a sc ie n tis t 's acquaintance with nature. She lived in an exciting world of ir is and orioles and daf­fodils and cocoons and bu tterflies and robins and snakes and daisies and clouds and sunsets and snow and hemlocks and dews and wells and mountains and lightning and re­volving p lanets.*4

Instead of a "Dream World" made up of conventional gener­alised aspects of nature, she gives us vividly realised rea li­ty?

* Brora* n! iionaly Awarloann. p .353.4 H id . , p .353.

J C hristinajR ossett 1 *s P o etica l Works, p .388.

M M

34

A bird earn® down the walk:He did not know I saw;He b it an angle-worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw.And then he drank a dew From a convenient grass,And then hopped sidewise to the wall fo le t a beetle pass.He glanced with rapid eyesThat hurried a l l abroad,-They looked like frightened beads, I thoughtHe o tlrred his velvet headLike one in danger; cautious,I offered him a orumb,And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer homeThan oars divide the ocean.Too silver for a seam.Or b u tte rflie s , off banks of neon.Leap, plashless, as they swim.1

Instead of trad itional symbolism, we find imagery s ta r t­ling in i ts unexpectedness:

A cap of lead across the sky Was tigh t and surly drawn,We could not find the Mighty Face,The figure was withdrawn.A ch ill came up as from a shaft.Our noon became a well,A thunder storm combines the ©harms Of Winter and of Hell,*

Instead of basing upon nature1s f ra il ty exhortations to orthodox religion, Emily Dickinson goes to nature i ts e lf to find her most enduring religions

Borne keep the Sabbath going to ebureh;at home,

or a chorister.And an orchard for a dome.

Borne keep

SB

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice; l ju st wear my wlnge.And instead of to lling t ie b e ll for ohuroh,Our l i t t l e sexton sings.God preaches,- a noted clergyman,- And the sermon is never long;So instead of getting to heaven a t la s t,I'm going a l l along!*

And, instead of sad reflection on the transiency of na­tu ra l beauty, her dominant mood is an eostatio absorption Inthe present glory;

I ta s te a liquor never brewed.From tankards scooped in pearl;Hot a l l the vats upon the Rhine Yield such an alcohol!Inebriate of a ir am I,And debauchee of dew,Reeling through endless summer days. From ifwis of molten blue.When landlords turn the drunken bee Out ef the foxglove's door When bu tte rflies reneunee th e ir drams, I shall but drink the more!f i l l seraph# swing their snowy hats,And saints to windows rm vTo see the l i t t l e tipp ler Leaning against the ennf*

l ife in Christ! R ossetti's poetry

The phases of l i f e which Christina Rossetti reflects inher poetry are restric ted , as Elisabeth Cary says,

"to the simoie round of 'woman's sphere' - of the med­ieval woman's sphere, indeed, which encompassed loving and grieving and praying.. . . Of what may be called in-

pp.110-11.

28

te lleo tual curiosity sho hae nothing.*!Eopeolally true of her poems of l i f e in general io Gooee'e otatomenti

•Her habitual tone io one of melancholy reverie, the pathos of which io strangely intensified by her appre­ciation of beauty and pleasure**3

*A Ballad of Boding*3 and other of her allegories of l i f e picture i ts "weariness and palnfulnese" and the vanity of its worldly pleasures. These ideas, she expresses as •One Certainty* in the eonnet of that t i t l e , with i ts echoes of "Ecclesiastest*

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith.All things are vanity. The eye and ear Cannot be f ille d with what they see and hear.Like early dew, or like the sudden breath Of wind, or like the.grass that wlthereth Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear:So. l i t t l e joy hath he, s# l i t t l e cheer.T ill a l l things end in the long dust of death.Today is s t i l l the same as yesterday.Tomorrow also even as one of them;And there is nothing new under the sun:U ntil the anolent race of Time be run.The old thorns shall grow out of the old stem.And. morning shall be cold and twilight grey.4

This was the mood of one of her earliest poems, "Present and future*, written when she was not yet sixteen (only the f i r s t half of the pom is quoted here):

! Cory, Elisabeth, The Rossettis: Dante Gabriel and Christina.

What is l i f e that we should love i t . Cherishing I t evermore.Hover prising aught above I t,Ever loth to give i t o'er?

pp.251, 359

37

/Is i t goodneso? io i t gladness? Hay, *tis more of sin and sadness| W> of weariness ' t i e more.Earthly joys are very fleeting, Earthly sorrows very long;Parting ever follows meeting,Eight succeeds to evensong.*

And i t is repeated time a fte r time, with perhaps i ts b it te r ­est expression years la te r in one of the sonnets of the aLater Life" series!

This Life is fu ll of numbness and of balk.Of haltingness and baffled short•fining,

• Of promise unfu lfilled , of everything That is' puffed vanity and empty talk;I ts very bud hangs cankered on the stalk , •

. I ts very song-bird tra i ls a broken wing.I ts very Spring is not indeed like Spring,But sighs like Autumn round an aimless walk.This Life we live is dead for a l l i t s breath;Death1s self i t is , set off on pilgrimage.Travelling with to ttering steps the f i r s t short stage; The second stage Is one mere desert dust Where Death s its veiled amid creation’s rusts- Unveil thy;face, 0 Death who a rt not Death.3

With th is mood of weary repining over the unsatisfao terl-ness of l i f e is usually found another feeling, which somewhatrelieves i ts gloom - the feeling that we must "bear grief inhope," as Christina Rossetti expresses i t in the conclusion ofthe "Present and Future" poem.3 This ever-recurring attemptto find satisfaction through sp iritu a l resignation and patient

- • '

hope receives expression again and again in "very humble hope­ful quiet psalms"4 among her devotional poems, as in the mddi- t at ion upon "Take no thought for the morrow; •

1 cC hristina Ro s s e t t i ' s p oatloa l Works, p.95

* Bald., p.366.

##

tiho knars? God knows: and what he knows Is well and best.The darkness hideth not farm Hint, bat Clear as the morning or the evening Of east or west.

glows

Wherefore man*© strength is to s i t s t i l l :Hot wasting careTo antidate tomorrow's good or i l l ;Yet watching meekly, watching with good w ill. Watching to prayer.Some rising or some setting ray From east or west,I f not today, why then another day Will light each dove upon the homeward way Safe to her nest.1

Mfe in Daily Dickinson's Poetry

"Experiment to me is everyone I meet, "2 onoe wrot e Emily Bieklneon, Experiment to her, indeed, is l i f e I ts e lf - an ex­periment a l l phases of which are to be examined with rapt attention and the findings to be noted with utmost tru th . Lew­is ohn says!

"She applied the scalpel of observation to passion and to pain and watched, even as she suffered, the phenomena of the in te rio r l i f e . "3

Hot experiment only, but "a s t i l l volcano, *4 a th rillin g drama-Dramais v ita le s t expression Is the Common Day,5

an exciting adventure is mere living -Adventure most unto i ts e l f The Soul condemned to be; Attended by a Single Hsund-

Chrietlna Doosetti's poetical Works, p.138.=E3inra,uyv/isoiin, **4.v*» Further Poemo of

m ts m m m m r% .:"'erioo, p .360.

39

Its dim Identity.*And tru th Is stranger than fic tion ♦

Ho romance sold unto Could go enthrall a man As the perusal of His individual one.•Tis f ic tio n 's , to d ilu te fo p lausib ility pur novel, when H is sma fo credit - ' t i s n 't true

11tw el*

enough

She does not "dilute to p lausib ility9 of a trad itional system the paradoxes and ironies of l i f e as she experiences i t t "Much madness is divinert sense,*3 **?ls beggars banquets best d e f in e ," V ic to ry comes la te .*5 "Exhilaration,. . . the Breese that l i f t s us from the ground,*s blows through some.of her pootry; at other times the mood is that of "I f e l t a fun­eral in my brain .8? She does not overbalance either side ef the scale:

For each ecstatic instant Wo must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy.0

Yet i t is the anguish which faeinates her most?I measure every grief I meet With analytic eyes?I wonder i f i t weighs like mine.Or has an easier s ize.9

Like Christina Rossetti, she grieves that "The nearest dream recedes unrealised, **° but when her "priceless hay* is

lo st, her reaction is fearless questioning as to the cause, father than religious resignation:

1 Complete Poems of Emily Moklnson. p.357s 9Ibid., p.380..3 4IMd. , pp. 2 9 - 3 0 Ibid .,p .30. 6lbid.,p.26p.7 ib id :;p ;338* 9m id . ; t .23." 9 iMd.;pp.6i-63.* 10m id .;p .is ;’

30

m other a th ief did i t - - mother i t who the tfj.nd- Ihether Dfeityts gulitlepe My business is to find.*

She,alGO, longs for escape from the captivity of tragic oir* cumetanoeo:

Ilithew t quicker hlood,i % % £ S ® 8 £ o a ’ -

t never hear of prisons broad By soldiers battered d But I tug childish at

r to f a i l again!*Onlylean,my bars,-

Tot she feelsTo be alive is pesrer.Existence in i ts e lf Without a further function.Omnipotence enoughTo be alive and W ill- •Tie able as a God!The Further of ourselves be what-Such being Flnitude?*

And she re lies upon her can •columnar se lf*4 for the "superi­ority to fate* which she says i t is possible to earn-

A Pittance at a time Until to her surprise.The soul with s tr ic t economy Subsists t i l l Paradise.°

1 Further f 3l p5

$s of Emily Dickinson, p.19.‘ ns on. p.33.

illy Dickinson, p.128.b P»-8«

31

Lovo in ChristinacRoGoetti'G poetry

Christina Rossetti wrote one of the soot joyful lovelyrics of literature# ”A Birthday:*'

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is In a watered shoot:My heart is like an apple-treeWlxose boughs are bent with thick-set f ru it;My heart is like a rainbow shell .That paddles In a halcyon soaj My heart is gladder than a l l these Because my love is oome to me.Raise me a dais of s ilk and dam;Hang i t with valr and purple dyes;Carve i t in doves and pomegranates,And peacocks with a hundred eyes;Work i t in gold and s ilver grapes,$® leaves and silver flouro-de-lys;Because the birthday of ray l ife Is oome, my lovo is oome to me.3-

Beautiful expression of the happiness of love is found alsoIn "Maiden-Song,w3 "In The Lane,"3 and "A Bride-Song.n-But the usual noto in her poetry of love is sadness - grieffor the disappointments of lovo, yearning for lost happiness,the feeling that earthly love oan never sa tisfy aid should berenounced for heavenly love.

With characteristic reticence, she usually masks her own feelings about lovo by tho use of trad itional subject matter. Story-poems, often ballad-like, of what Dorothy Stuart ca lls ■ the "broken betrothal m otif,. . . love frustrated either by per­fidy or by death,«5 occur very frequently; among them are -

6 Stuart, Dorothy, C hristina R o ssetti. p .lT .

"The Dying Man to Hie Betrothed,*1 "Isadora,"3 «tzara,*S

"Heart's Chill Between,"4 "Death's Chill Between,”5 "Look on This Picture and On This,"3 "Maude Clare,"7 "Cousin Kate,"8 "Sister Maude,"8 "Hoble S isters,"18 »A Bird's Eye View,"11 "The Poor Ghost,*18 "Margery,*13 "The Ghost's Petition,«14 "Hoping Against Hppe,*^ "Under Willows, a1® "Songs in a Corn­

f ie ld ," 1? "Mariana, and the long poem of medieval romance •The Prince's Progress."# Another favorite theme is that of renunciation, not without great grief, of earthly love for the sake of heavenly loves "Three Huns, "30 n^om House to

Homs, *81 "The Convent Threshold,"33 and "A Martyr - The Vigil of the Feast."83 This self-abnegation underlies much of her devotional poetry also; as Katherine Tynan says:

"In spite of the human passion which heats through much of her poetry she was of the women who are called to be Brides of Christ, own s is te r to St.Teresa and St.Cather­ine of Siena."84

Probably the best of Christina R ossetti's love poetry (with the possible exception of the group of poems written In Ita lian - "II Hoaeegiar Dell'Oriante"25 «. and not publish-

,p.365-366.Ibid. ,p . 13-16. 21IMd. ,p J6^35r4(a3lMd. ,p. 340-343.M d .»p .357-360. . ^ „Tynan, Katherine, "My F irs t Acquaintance - Santa Christina",

Living Age, 372$435, February 17, 1913.Christina R ossetti's poetical Works, pp.447-453.

«d u n til a f te r her death) is found in the cycle "Monna Innominate - A Sonnet of Sonnets>« Of th is series of four­teen sonnets, Dorothy Stuart, sayss

“Nowhere else has Christina Rossetti used her g ift of unstilted poetio diction with more magnificent effect.She achieves in these fourteen sonnets the perfect fu­sion of emotion and language, the soul and the body of poetry.* *1

Elisabeth Cary writes ooneeming them:“It Is not too much - it is not really enough - to say that the love poems of th is, l i t t l e group, eonslAer- ed both teohnioally and emotionally, ooSbine more fau ltlessly the great qualities of passion and sp iri­tu a l reticenoe. than any other love poetry of the pre­sent century.*3

Katherine Tynan goes s t i l l farther in her praise, saying that th is is the "noblest series of sonnets given to the world by a woman.*3 At least, i t is certain tha t, with Mrs. Browning*s “Sonnets from the Portuguese,* they rank very hi#& among sonnet series which record a cycle of emotional experi­ence; and Houston Peterson in his Book of Sonnet Sequences agrees with More and others in the opinion that Christina Ros­s e t t i 's poems are more tru ly “feminine* in expression than those of Mrs.Browning.4

Christina Rossetti placed a t the beginning of each of these sonnets a quotation from Dante and one from.Petrarch, and introduced the whole series with a prose, preface in which

* Stuart Dorothy i Christina Rossetti; p.133. °ap!36S^eBbeth*

RAN e Gabriel and Christina.8 Tynan, Katherine, “My F irs t Acquaintance - Santa Christ ins* * A Living Age. 373:436. February 17, 1*1*.* Peterson, Houston, The Book of Sonnet Sequences, p.393.

34

*h# referrad to Beatrice and Laura, than wrote th is!flTh8Be heroines of world-wide fame were preceded by

a bevy of unnamed ladies, *donne innominate,1 sung by a school of less conspicuous poets; and In that land and that period which gave simultaneous b irth to Catholics, to Alblgenses, and to Troubadours, one can imagine many a lady as sharing her lover*s poetic ap­titude, while the barrier between them might be one held sacred by both, yet not such as to render mutual love incompatible with mutual honor.

*Had such a lady spoken for herself, the po rtra it le f t us might have appeared more tender, if less dig­n ified , than any drawn even by a devoted fr ie n d .. Or had the Great poetess of our own day and nation only been unhappy Instead of happy, her circumstances weald have invited her to bequeath to us, in lieu of the ‘Portuguese Sonnets,* an Inimitable ‘donna innominate* drawn not from fancy but from feeling, and worthy to occupy a niche beside Beatrice and Laura.*1

In spite of the careful suggestion of impersonality and trad i­tional source, the thoughtful reader receives the impression that in these • enacts Christina Roesett1 herself has “drawnnot from fancy but from feeling.* Her brother William Michael Rossetti confirms th is idea in a note dealing with the series:

“To any one to whom i t was granted to be behind the scenes of Christina RossettVs l i f e - and to how few was th is granted - i t is not merely probable but cer­ta in that th is ‘sonnet of sonnets * was a personal u tte r ­ance - an intensely personal one. The introductory prose-mete, about ‘many a lady sharing her lover‘s poet­ic aptitude, * e to ., is a blind - not an untruthful blind, for i t alleges nothing that is not reasonable, and on the surface correct, but s t i l l a blind interposed to draw off attention from the w riter in her proper person. *3

The opening lines of each of these sennetePwill perhapsgive some conception of the subjects ef the various poems as ----- ------;------------ ------------------ -----------:--------------------------------

3 Ib id ., pp.58-64.

35

Troll as the gradual change In emotional content from tender happiness through suffering to resignation as the series pro­ceeds: -

■ - ■ ■ : 1Como hack to me, vrho wait.and watch for you:- Or come not yet, for i t Is over then.

" 1 1 ■

I wish I could rememher that f i r s t day,F irs t hair, f i r s t moment of your meeting me.

I l l , .

I dream of you, to wake: would that I might Bream of you and not wake hut slumber on.

IVX loved you f i r s t : hut afterwards your love, Outeoaring mine sang suoh a lo f tie r song..

V •0 my heart's heart, and you who are to me lo re than myself myself, God be with you.

VITrust me, I have hot earned your dear rebuke- X love, as you would have me, God the most.

VII•Love me, for I love you' - and answer me,•Love me, for I love you': so shall we stand.

VIII. 'I , i f I perish, perish ' - Esther spake:And bride of l i f e or death she made her fa ir .

IXThinking of you, and a l l that was, and a ll That might have been and now' can never be.

■ ' xTime f lie s , hope flags, l i f e piles a -wearied wing;

36

Death following hard on life 'ga ins ground apace.XX

Many In aftertimes w ill say of you •He loved her1- while of me what w ill they say?

' V m .If there be any one can take my place And make you happy whan I grieve to grieve

' ' ■ ‘ ■ m i . .If I could tru s t mine own se lf with your fate,Shall I not rather tru st i t in God's hands?

XHYouth Dwelt

The tenth sonnet of th is se rie s•seems to me more characteris­t ic of the ideas and moods of Christina R ossetti's poetry (not only.of love but of the other themes as well) than any; other single poem she wrote:

Time file# , hope flags, l i f e p lies a wearied wingj Death following hard on l i f e gains ground apace?Faith rune with each and rears an, eager face.Outruns the .rest, makes light of everything.Spurns earth, and s t i l l finds breath to pray and sing? While love ahead of a l l u p lifts his praise,S t i l l asks for grace and s t i l l gives thanks for grace. Content with a l l day brings and night w ill bring.Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse.Let us go f a l l asleep, dear friend, in peace:A l i t t l e while, and age and sorrow cease;A l i t t l e while, and l ife reborn annuls Loss and decay and death, and a l l is love.1

1 Christina R o sse tt i's p o e tica l Works, p .63 .

gone, and beauty gone if ever there beauty in so poor a face as mine.

3?

Love in Emily Dickinson*b Poetry

Probably no poet hao excelled Emily Dickinson in expres­sion of the heights which human love can reach. Outer®eye* refers to her poems of love as "the most impassioned poems written by any sonan except S a p p h o ” 3. and "some of the greatest love poems ever w ritten .*9

. The love a l i f e may show Below 3

is to her e© great a miracle that she regards i t with the ox* a l ta t ion and the rapt devotion and the humility which Christina Rossetti portrays the saints and martyrs as feeling in contem­plation of divine love. Indeed, the principal me# she makes of the terms of religious symbolism is in attempts to express the transport and the pain of human love, as in the following poem:

There came a day at summer*o fu ll Entirely for me?I thought that eueh were for the saints, Where revelations be.The sun, as common, went abroad,The flowers, accustomed, blew.As if no sa il the solstice passed That maketh a l l things new.The time was scarce profaned by speech? The symbol of a word Was needless, as at sacrament The wardrobe of our Lord.Each was to each the sealed ohurch. 1 2

1 Unteimeyer, Louis, Modern American Poetry, p.38.2 Untemeyer, Louis, rBmlly Dioklnson." Saturday Review of Lit- „ erature. 6:1169, July 5, 1930.2 further Poems of Emily Dickinson, p.147.

Permitted to commune thio time,Lest we too awkward show At supper of th e ,Lamb.The hours slid fdst, as hours w ill.Clutched tight by greedy hands;So faces on two decks look bank,Bound to opposing lands.And so, when a l l the time had failed,Without external sound.Each Sound the o ther's crucifix,We gavo no other bond.Sufficient tro th that we shall riee- Deposed at length, the grave- To that new marriage, ju stified Through Calvaries of Lovo.l

She ha® none of the feeling that earthly love should be eaeri-ficed to gain heavenly love; the eostacy of earthly love evendime for her the utmost Heaven could offer aside from i t :

. . . your face Would put out Jesus.*,'That new graceGrow plain and foreign On my homesick eye.Except that you, than he Shone closer by.They'd judge us - how?For you served Heaven, you know.Or sought to;I could not.Because you saturated sight,And I had no more eyes For sordid excellence As Paradise.And were yoi lo s t, I would be,Though my name Rang loudest On the heavenly fame.

1 Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, pp. 153-153.

And were you saved.And I condemned to be Where you were not.That se lf were hell to me.*

With absolute and unwavering f in a lity she simoanoes in poem a fte r poem the completeness of her dedication*

Doubt me, my dim companion.1 Why, God would be content With but a fraction of the love Poured thee without a s tin t, the whole of me, forever,What more the woman can,-Say qulok, that I may dower the®With la s t delight I own!It cannot be my s p ir it ,For that was thins before;I ceded a l l of dust I knew,- What opulence the moreWhose farthest Was that she might Some distant heaven. Dwell timidly with thee!3

Deep humility, as well as rapture and devotion, found in Christina R ossetti's religious poetry, she expresses in her love poetry*

My worthiness is a l l my doubt.His merit a l l my fear.Contrasting-which, my qualities Do lowlier appear;Lost I should insufficient prove For his beloved need.The chiefest apprehension Within my loving creed.So I, the undivine abode Of h is elect content.Conform my soul as *t were a church Unto her sacrament.3

» Ib id 10* 6 ? l C6fl1 4 7 .g l;ilT ' FP '151-152.i XMd.* pp*. 166-16?!

40

In her poems of love. Bully Dickinson epec.ke aisoet ml*

ways in the f i r s t person, with the accents of actual experi­ence rather than through the mask of trad itiona l subjeot- matter. What Brown ca lls "immediacy of approach”3- le hers in these poems, and i t gives to them the piercing quality of rea lity , nothing could be more effective than the simple statements of fact combined with fresh and vivid Imagery by which she conveys her emotion, as in the following poems

I t was a quiet way He asked i f I was h is.I made no answer of the tongue,But answer of the eyes.And then he bore me high Before th is mortal noise.With swiftness as of chartete And distance as of wheels.the world did drop away As countries from the feet Of him that leaneth in BalloonUpon an ether s tre e t.the gulf behind was not- the continents were new. Eternity i t was - before Eternity was due.Ho seasons were to us;I t was not night nor#*«*;For sunrise stopped upon the place _And fastened i t in dawn.3

the pain of renunciation seeking solace by thoughts of the wifely joys which "might have boon" is expressed with moving tenderness in poems dealing with simple duties, as in the one

Brown, R.W.,

41

which begins with these stanzas* *Although I put away his life*An ornament too grandFor forehead low as mine to wear,This might have been the handThat sowed the Or smoothed Or pushed Or played hie

flowers he preferred,A a homely pain- the pebble from hi his chosen tune.*

s path.

She records with utmost simplicity the conversation la whichshe learned that the one whom sh# loved was dead, but nosonnet or elegy can surpass in unforgettable poignancy thosefew commonplace words?

If he were living - dare I ash?And how i f he were dead?And so around the words 1 went Of meeting them afraid .I hinted changes, lapse of time.The surfaces of years I touched with caution* lest they s l i t And show me to my fears.Eeverted to adjoining lives Adroitly turning out Wherever I suspected graves - ff was prudenter, I thought.And He - I rushed with sudden force In face of the suspenee- "Was burled* - "Burled!""tot" ■ •My l i f e just holds the trench.3

Her hope, like Christina Rossetti*s, transfers i ts e lf to anoth­er world. However, instead of religious resignation, she faces the calvary of her love with a "fortitude of fate*# whlel t r i -

1 Further poems of Emily Dickinson, p.160. a m s . , p.i73.* to ld ., p .170.

43

umphs by i t s very strength of endurance. When Lewisohn wrote that she added *a new and heroic note to the eternal litany of love,*1 he may have had in mind the courage of such a poem as th is:

Joy to have merited the pain To merit the release.Joy to have perished every To compass thee a t la s t.

step

Pardon to look upon thy face With these old-fashioned eyes- Better than new could be, for that, Tho* bought in Paradise-Because they looked on thee before And„thou hadst looked on them- Prove me, my hazel witnesses,The features are the seme.So flee t thou wert when present.So in fin ite when gone- An Orient's apparition Remanded of the mom.The height I rooolleot 'T was ever with the h i l ls .The depth upon my soul Was notchedAs floods on whites of wheels.f© hsunt t i l l Time has DroppedHis slow deoade away.And haunting actual iso To la s tAt least, Eternity.3

Religion in Christina Rossetti*s Poetry

Religion is by fa r the predominant theme in i l r le t in a R ossetti's poetry. Of the 996 poems in the complete edition

| Lewisohn, Ludwig.^Expression in America. p.359.

of her poetry, 450 were placed under the defin ite heading "Devotional poems,» constituting, as Eleanor Thomas pointsout, "the largest body o f:English religious verse since George Herbert * s. "1 Many of the remaining poems could well be group­ed with these? "religion was so much her very being"3 (quoting Hugh Walker) that no line can be drawn between the "devotional" and the "secular* poems. The religion of a l l these poems is without exception *orthodox"? Gosse says:

•Christina Rossetti»s poetry is ~ ~ 'Protestant, i t is Anglican? nor but her secular also, bear the the doctrines of the Church of

Her unquestioning acceptance of the trad itional ideas of herchurch is emphasised by DeWilde:

"Her religion was entirely a matter of feeling. She did not reason about her fa ith ; she fe lt convinced that what she believed was the tru th which had been revealed by God. "4

And Glutton-Brook declares that •she was religious with a medi­eval intensity and devotion."5

The group-titles under which Christina Rossetti arranged most of her religious poems w ill give some idea of the "ortho­dox* quality of her subj eot-matter: "Songs for Strangers and Pilgrims"?6 "Some Feasts and Fasts";7 "Divers Worlde-Tlme and Eternity"?8 "Hew Jerusalem and i ts Citizens";9 "Christ Our a l l

not merely Christian and her divine works only,

stamp of uniformity with

In AH*;1 «Out of the Deep e I called Onto Thee, 0 Dprd»;3"SiftB and Graces*;3 "The World-Self-Destruction.*4 The t i t le s of meat of the poems within each group are B iblical phraseswhich the Bubjeots of meditation In the poems them­selves. The group called * Some Feasts and Fasts* contains, in the order of the church calendar, poems appropriate for the various days of special observance in the Anglican Church.

In her religious poetry, she expresses again and again the renunciation, of worldly things, the complete submission tothe w ill of God, end the hope of l i f e to corns which are such prominent themes in her favorite boohs: St.Augustinus Confes­sions. and Thomas a ‘ Kempls! Imitation of Christ. The poem "Passing away, salth the World, passing away* (already mentionr ed in connection with Swinburne^ admiration for her poetry), with i ts acceptance of earth 's b itterness and i t s patient hopeof Heaven's joy is perhaps the finest expression she has givento this mood of sp iritu a l resignation:

Passing away, salth the World, passing away!Chances, beauty, and youth, sapped day by day:Thy l i fe never continue# in one stay.I# the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey That hath won neither laurel nor bay?I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:Thou, root-etrioken, shall not rebuild thy decay On my bosom for'aye.Then I answered: Yea.

Hearken what the past doth witness and say: Bust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,A canker is In thy bud, thy leaf must decay.

—

pp .118-332IMd.,pp.3®~386.

4g

t At midnight, at cook orow, at morning, t® the Bridegroom shall come and shallWateh thou and^pray. Then I answered! Yea.

met delay;

t0nd” 8pray’Though I tarry , wait for me, tru s t me, watoh and pray: Arise, cane away, night Is past and lo i t is day.My love, my s is te r , my spouse, thou shalt hear me say. Then I answered: Yea.1

Many of her poems lack the serene confidence of th is la t te r stanza, expressing instead an almost painful sense of unwor­th toes s of salvation} these are, in the words of m 1th Blrk-head, #ao sad and plaintive in their humility as Casper*e *01ney Hymns.**3 The poem which follows her brother consider­ed so characteristic that he had the second stanza engraved upe® her tcmbst ernes

Give me the lowest place} not that I dare Ask for that lowest place, but Thou hast died That I might live and share

Give me the lowest place: or i f for me That lowest place too high, make one more low Where I may s i t and see „My God and love Thee so. 3

A more appealing side of her religion is shown in the Christ­mas oarols, which have, as Birkhead says, *a sweetness and simplicity found in few w riters except those of the Middle Ages.*4 Especially lovely are the ones beginning "In the■—* wwmmww.

p.98.

p.99.

46

bleak mid-winter,11 nt»o* newborn Jesus, *8 and "Before the paling of the otars” which we quote here:

Before the winter mom.Before the earlies t obek-oroir Jesus Christ was horn:Bom in a stable.Cradled In a manger,Is the world His hands had made

In Jesusalem,Yeung and old lay fast asleep In crowded Bethlehem:Saint and Angel, ox and ass$ Kept a watch together,Before the Christmas daybreak In the winter weather.Jesus on his Mother*s breast In the stable cold.Spotless Iamb of God was He Shepherd of the fold:Bet us kneel with Mary Maid, With Joseph bent and hoary,to t h a i l1tbeBKingnl f 1$- 0,it e ! ! 4

Christina R ossetti's kinship with the great names ofAnglican religious poetry, especially those of the seventeenth•entury,4 is commented upon by many c r itic s . Bowther says*

"She has added abundantly to the treasure of English re­ligious poetry which had been stored by & line of poets from Caedmon to Patmore.*8

.......... „ i ........................................................................... .... ..................... .......... ............... .......................................................... ' ..... ......................................................

V o l.m i, The Wlne-

r, gorget" "Christ ina^Ross e t t l,1 Contemporary Rev lew. 104:688, Hov®nber, ISIS.

47

Elton speaks of her as *the only mistress in oiir language of sacred verse,# and says that her verse #re© a llB the trad ition of Anglican poetry in Goorgo Herbert or Henry Vaughan."1Dorothy Stuart w rites:

#In the whole range of poetical ac tiv ity nothing is so delicate or so d iff ic u lt as the writing of a hymn, a new hymn that w ill f a l l quietly and naturally into i ts place among the old, the dear, the memory-hallowed hymns of other days. Alone among women w riters of English, Chris­tina Rossetti is capable of giving l ife to lyriee worthy to rank with^th© best of Ken and Cowper, Watts, Wesley,

A. Hamilton Thompson states in theMtP.rctora.i

"No religious poet of. the nineteenth century, even i f we take into aoomnt the b r illia n t but more turbid genius of Franeis Thompson, oan be said to challenge comparison with her whose •shrine of holiest-hearted song* Bffinburne approached with reverent admiration of her single-heart­edness and purity of purpose."3

olares that She "passed steadily . . . to the forefront of a l l

Religion in Billy Dickinsons poetry

In no respect is the contrast between Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson more obvious than in th e ir religious ideas. Indeed, in Christina R ossetti1s opinion - which we have reoord-

1 Elton, Oliver,„ Vol.IV, p.23,^t 8 Stuart, Dorothy p.147.

Vol.KIII, The Nine-»» - w ls t ln a itcesetti," Living Age. 304:633,

March 9, 1896.

48

ed for us in her own words, - the religious ideas of DailyDickinson were not religious a t a l l . .Roberto Brothers, thefirm whleh brought out the f i r s t American edition of ChristinaR ossetti's poetry in 1866, also published the f i r s t edition ofEmily Dickinson's poetry in 1890. Mr. Riles, head of RobertsBrothers, sent a copy of the la t te r to Christina Rossetti and,in her acknowledgment of i t , she wrote;

• . . . a very remarkable work of genius,- though I cannot but deplore some of the religious or rather irreligious p ieces.* *!

Certainly, Emily Dickinson's "candor which extends from irrev­erent mischief to divine challenge'^ is a t the opposite pole from Christina R ossetti's "c lo is tra l f a i th ."3

The Bible, which Christina Rossetti regarded as holy re­velation, was well known to Bully Dickinson also; in fac t, from i t she drew the great majority of her allusions. She mentions in her poems: Belshazzar, Jehovah, Heaven, (led, Sabaothani, Calvary, Saviour, Oetheemane, David, Goliath, Jew#, Paradise, Revelations, Moses, Canaan, Iscario t, Sabbath, Gene­s is , Hell, the Lamb, Eden, Thomas, Gabriel,. Christ, Peter, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, the Devil, Elijah, the Thief, Corinthians 1:15, the Bible, Bethlehem, Satan, Judas, Jordan, Jacob, Stephen, Paul, Israe l, the Tribes, Hebe, Judea, as well as angels, martyrs, sa in ts, cherubim and seraphim. But the

1 Todd, Mabel, "Emily Dickinson's Literary Debut," Harper's* Magazine, 160:469, March, 2930.3 untefineyer, Louis. Modern American Poetry, p.9.3 Untermeyer. Louis. Modern American poetry, p.9.

49

use she generally makes of such references Is so to ta lly un­expected that i t might well s ta r tle a person less orthodox than Christina Rossetti; here, for example, is her tabloid- sty le criticism of the Bible!

The Bible is an antique volume Written by faded men.At the suggestion of Holy Subjects - Bethlehem - Eden - the ancient Homestead -

- the great Defaulter, David - the Troubadour.Sin - a distinguished Precipice Others must re s is t.Boys that "believe*Are very lonesome - Other boys are "lost*.Had but the ta le a warbling Telit All the boys would come - Orpheus * sermon captivated.I t did not condemn,1

She does not hesitate to contradict i ts statements!"Sown in corruption?*By no means! „Apostle is askew.2

Even God is not safe from her w it. Conrad Aiken says:"She was frankly irreverent, on occasion . . . .What she was Irreverent to , of course, was the Puri­tan conception of God, the Puritan attitude toward him- . . . the trad itiona l and anthrepc®orphid *God,* who was s t i l l , in her day, a portentous Victorian gentleman."3

Some of her poems fu lly justify Gamaliel Bradford's s ta te­ment that "God is treated with such light ease as an intimate

* Aiken! Ooroad, "Emily Dloklnaon." D ial. 76:305-306, April 1904#

*

so

friend would be,"! - as, for instance, the following poemwith itc note of playful commendation:

Lightly stepped a yellow s ta r To i ts lofty place,Loomed the Moon her silver hat From her lu s tra l face.All of evening softly l i tAs an a s tra l ha ll-"Father," I observed to Heaven,"You are punctual."3

Occasionally we are tempted to remark with Untermeyer,■Banter with deities may be refreshing, but is archness with God always delightful?*3-

However, her a ttitude toward God and religion is mot a ll ■irreverent mischief* by any means. She is intensely serious in many of her poems dealing with religious matters, though her seriousness is not in the least like that of Christina lo sse tti . Poem a fte r poem reflec ts her preoccupation with the mystery of God and the problem of evil in his universe; she desires deeply the comfort of belief in God's goodness but, as her niece wrote of her,

"Emily could not be made to have fa ith . Her a le rt curios­ity could not be drugged into i t by dogma. *»

She insists upon looking at God and the universe with her owneyes rather than through the media of doctrines and creeds,and reserves the right to judge what she sees and to reach her

aa

1

4

Bradford, Gamaliel, "Portraits of American Women - VI Emily ^ Dickinson. * Atlantic Mcmt lvT~ia4:8%4^ Au^ustT 1919;

iermeyer, Louis,erature. 6:1171, Ally 5, 1930. '

Further foems of Sally Dickinson. (Introduction by Martha

ley of M t-

51

own eoneluelons.She lightly records her early belief in the God of ortho­

dox religion and her subsequent disillusionment In the follow­ing poems

I meant to have bat modest needs.Such as content, and heaven;Within my inoome these could lie ,And l ife and I keep even.But since the last included both.I t would suffice my prayer But just for one to stipulate,And grace would grant the pair.And so, upon this wise I orayod,- Great S p irit, give to me A heaven not so large as yours,But large enough for me.A smile suffused Jehovah1s face;The cherubim withdrew;Grave saints sto le out to look a t me,And showed the ir dimples, too.I le f t the place with a l l my might,- My prayer away I threw;The quiet ages picked i t up,And Judgment'twinkled, too.That one so honest be extant AQ take the ta le for true That ‘•Whatsoever you shall ask.I ts e lf be given you.8But I grown shrewder, scan the skies With a suspicious a i r , - As children, swindled for the f i r s t .All swindlers be, in fer.1

With greater b itterness, she writes:Of course I prayed «*And did God care?He cared as much as On the a irA bird had stamped her foot And cried “Give me!tt

1 Complete Poems of Emily Dickinsonj pp.33-34.

S3

tty reason, Ilf©I had not had, tu t for Yourself,'? were better charity To leave me In the atom's Merry and nought, and gay And mmb.Than th is smart misery.1

tomb.

At other times she feels the "Infinitude" of God to such an extent that

. arced beyond my errand I Trccrohipcd - did not pray.'3

But again she exhibits "that acid Quality of b iting sa tire , "3

which Amy Lowell mentions as one of her •haraeterletlce, when ohe writes:

•Heavenly Father," take to thee,The supreme iniquity.Fashioned by thy candid hand In a moment contraband.Though to tru st us seem to us More respectful - "we are dust."We apologise to Thee tor Thine own Duplicity. <-

On the basis of the.evidence furnished by clrcuantanoes, she reaches two conclusions: one when eh# eeneldere the evils of suffering and of apparent injustice; tlie other when ohe considers the good of human love and of joy mi oh as she found In nature. Since she cannot sa tisfac to rily reconcile one ##m- elusion with the other, I t is no wonder she addresses God in such paradoxical terms os "burglar, banker, father" In the following poem:

3 Lowell, Amy,4 Complete

p.97p.398,

55

I never lost ae rmoh tu t twice.And that was in the sod;Tvvioe have I stood a beggar Before the door of God IAngels, twice descending.Reimbursed my store.Burglar, banker, father,I am poor onoo more 11

Yet i t is plainly the description Implied in the term of“father” which predominates in her feeling, i f not always inher thought of God, as when she says.

Hot one by Heaven defrauded stay.Although He seem to stea l.He restitu tes in some sweet way.Secreted In His w ill .3

And nothing breaks down her fa ith in an immortality which w illsa tisfy the questioning sp ir it and solace the suffering heart!

I shall knew why, when time is over,And I have ceased to wonder why;Christ w ill explain each separate anguish In the fa ir schoolroom of the sky.He w ill t e l l me what peter promised.And I, for wonder a t his woo,I shall forget tho drop of anguish That scalds me now, that'scalds me now.3

Death and Immortality in Christina R ossetti’s Poetry

Death and Immortality were frequent themes in Christina R ossetti’s poetry throughout her l i fe . la the collection of her poems, we find among the earliest of he# poetry "Barth and Heaven” and "Burial Anthem,both written when she was four* *

I Complete Poems by Bmlly, Dloklnspn, i » litid ., 9,290.* < to^ stlla3R6aii3Wl'B P oetica l Potfca, p.84,

54

teen, and at the very end *To-morrom* (a term she often useefor l i f e a fte r death). and "Sleeping a t L ast/I written f i f tyyears la te r, just before her death. £ l i s t of the poemsdealing with these themes would he almost as long ao those ofher religious poems, for i t would have to include a great manyof the religious poems and some of love, as, well as otherswhich do not belong to either of those groups. Elisabeth Garyrefers to her as "called above a l l writers 'the singer ofdeath ,'•* and Walker writes;

"It would be d iff icu lt to find any other poet who has brooded so mueh upon death. Her most exquisite songs are of death . . . . The resu lt . . . is sad, but. i t is not glocmyj for she seems to feel easily and naturally, what so many have said without feeling, that the grave is rest, and the l i f e beyond i t a happiness unknown here.*3

Because of th is feeling, she writes about death as more desir­able than life ; she might have, been describing her own poetry In the lines about Hope in one of her poems;

Hope chants a funeral hymn most sweet and clear.And seems true chanticleerOf "tessuraction aid of a l l things dearIn the oncoming endless year.4

In bet early poems,she refers to death as rest from earth*o misery, aid that idea is repeated over and over in sub-

* sequent poems. Almost always she creates in these poems an effect of loveliness and peace, veiling the re a lity of death

55

with pootio desoriptiono of the beauty of nature and the bleoBednese of raot, with usually eo.se suggestion of the hap- pineos of waking in Heaven. Tho line ttSo she sleeps hidden in the flowers1,1 is typical of her treatment of death in th is group of poems. So exquisite are many of them, as Walker has eald, that i t is d iff ic u lt to choose ono from among them for quotation, but one which follows, entitled "Sound Sleep,"gives an idea of her a rtis try :

' 1 . ,Some are laughing, seme are weeping;She is sleeping, only sleeping.Hound her rest wild flowers are creeping;There the wind is heaping, heaping Sweetest sweets of Summer's keeping,By the corn-fields ripe for reaping.There are l i l i e s , and there blushes The deep rose, and there the thrushes Sing t i l l la te s t sunlight flushes In the west; a fresh wind, brushes Through the leaves while evening hushes.There by day the lark is singing And tho grass and weeds are springing;There by night the bat is winging;There forever winds are bringing Far-off chimes of church-belle ringing.,Hlght and. morning, noon and even.Their sound f i l l s her dreams with Heaven:The long s tr i f e a t length is striven:T ill her grave bands shall be riven.Such is tho good portion given ^To her sw l at rest and shriven.3

According to her poetry, death is greatly to be desired over l ife , not only because i t brings sleep with i ts blessed release from earth 's weariness but also because i t is the

J Christina R ossetti's poetical Works, p,301.% Ibid., p.ses.

58

fere-iunner of entrance into Heaven. Glutton-Brook eaya:•fhe most frequent of Christina Rossetti'e themes ic the longing for heaven ae a place where a l l her misgivings w ill be quieted and where a l l imperfect te r re s tr ia l de­lights . . . w ill be made perfect. I t is one of the chief subjects of a l l poetry . . . . I t xvao the theme of Sophocles*. . . 1 Aedipus Coloneus,1 of Shelley* s •Prometheus Unbound,1 of Hilton*s *Blest pair of Sirens,* of Browning*8 «Proo- piee, * and of many other masterpieces. But no poet has treated i t so constantly or with such pathetic insistence as Christina Rossetti,**

She sometimes fears that she may miss Heaven*s joys because of her unworthiness, but the rea lity of Heaven she never ques­tions. Hsr ideas of i t are trad itional in source, as can be seen free the poem *Kow They Desire:*

There is a sleep we have not slept,Safe in a bed unknown:There hearts are staunched that long have wept Alone or bled alone#Sweet sleep that dreams not, or whose dream Is foretaste of the tru th :Sweet sleep whose sweets are what they seem. Refreshing more than youth.There is a sea whose waters clear Are never tempest-tost:There is a home whose children dear Are saved, not one is lo st:There Cherubim and Seraphim And Angels dwell with Saints,Whose lustre no more dwindleth dim.Whose ardour never fa in ts .There is a love which f i l l s desire And can cur love requite:Like f i re i t draws cur lesser f ire ,Like greater light cur ligh t:For i t we agonize in s tr ife .We yearn, we famish thus- Lo in the far-off land of l i f e Doth i t not yearn for us?0 fa ir , 0 fa ir Jerusalem,

.. How fa ir , how far away.

* Glutton-Brook, Arthur, More essays on religion, p.17.

5?

When shall we eee thy Jasper-gem That gives thee light for day?

. Thy sea of glase like f ire , thy stree ts Of glass like virgin gold.Thy royal Elders on th e ir seats.Thy four Beasts manifold?Fair City of delights, the Bride In raiment white and clean.When shall we see thee loving-eyed.Sun-girdled, happy Queen?Without a wrinkle or a spot.Blood-cleansed, blood-purchased once:In how fa ir ground is fallen the lo t Of a l l thy happy sonsIDove's eyes beneath thy parted look,A dove's soft voice is thine:Thy nest is safe within the Rook,Safe in the very Vine:Thy walls salvation buildeth them And a l l thy gates are praise,0 fa ir , 0 fa ir Jerusalem,In sevenfold day of days.1

As A. Hamilton Thompson mentions in the Cambridge History of English Literature, "the heaven which she sees is the mystical c ity of 'The Revelation of St.John. '*3 Echoes of elements from John's description are noticeable in the poem just quoted} in other poem# are many additional ones. Ideas of Heaven in her poetry which do net come frem John's "Apocalypse* have th e ir source in Dante's Divine jXmedv. I t is Dante's vision she fol­lows when she describes the "steep etages”® 0f "heavenward stair** to be scaled u n til "hbove.the moon-'S the pilgrimshall pass through the Earthly Paradise "rapt on high" which

1 Christina R ossetti's poetical Works, pp.186-187.8 Cambridge History of Jnglish Literature. Vol.XIII, The nine­

teenth Century. Fart I I . p.154. g Christina R ossetti's Poetical Works, p.371.* Ittit., s rhid., pTasS:

■lies before the gate of Heaven*!, and shall enter into theecstasy of the Saints described in the roundel below;

As the voice of many waters a l l saints sing as one.As the Voice of an unclouded thundering?'Unswayed by the changing moon and unswayed by the sun.As the voice of many waters a l l s tin ts sing.Olroling round the raiiibcw of th e ir perfect ring.Twelve thousand times twelve thousand voices in unison Swell the triumph, swell the praise of Christ the King.Where raiment is white of blood-steeped linen, slowly spun. Where crowns are golden of Love1a own largessing.Where eternally the ecstasy is but begun.As the Voice of many waters a l l saints sing.3

Death and Immortality in Emily Dioklnson*s poetry

Emily Dickinson, as well as Christina Rossetti, wrote many of her best poano on the subjects of death and Immortality. Clement Wood calls her *an empurpled laureate of death*3 and Conrad Aiken says that i t was in suoh poems she "took fu ll pos­session of her genius.*& That she trea ts these subjects in a way very different from that of Christina Rossetti is to be ex­pected a f te r the foregoing comparisons of th e ir poetry. She em­phasizes the personal elements of grief and of wonder about death and immortality, instead of echoing trad itional ideas. Elisabeth Sergeant writes;

■The peculiar quality of her short concentrated poems is that they bring in fin ity and eternity within a village hedge; to her . . . the great earthly experience was poign­antly individual.** 5

5 Sergeant, Elizabeth, * An Early Imagist,* New Republic, 4:53, August 14, 2935.

1 C hristina R o sco ttl's p o e tic a l Works, p .319 .3 p . 3 l 3 ~ "

April, 1934

Instead of using generalized p oetic descrip tion s of

death, she describes dying in terms of individual reality , asin the following poem:

The last night that she lived.It was a common night.Except the dying; th is to ue Made nature d iffe ren t.We noticed smallest th ings,- Things overlooked before,By th is great light upon our minds Ita lic ised , as *1 were.That others could exist While she mist finish quite,A jealousy for her arose 80 nearly in fin ite .We waited while she passed;I t was a narrow time.Too jostled were our souls to speak.At length the notice came.She mentioned, and forgot; Then ligh tly as a reed Bent to the water, shivered Consented, and was dead.And we, we placed the hair,And drew the head erect;And then an awful leisure was,

, Our fa ith to regulateAThe grief which follows is described in these homely words:

The bustle in a house The morning a fte r death Is solemneet of industries Enacted upon earth ,-The sweeping up the heart,And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until e te rn ity .3

g O g^ *ote poems o f Em ily D ick inson , pp. 190-191.

60

She presento the baffling nc.jesty of death In a postT dealingwith the simple overy-dey ae-eoc lot lone which w ill never occur again!

I f anybody's friend be dead,It'D sharpest of the themeThe thinking hew they walked alive.At suoh and euoh a time.Their costume, of a Sunday,Some manner of the h a lr ,- A prank nobody knew but them.Lost, in the sepulchre.How warm they were on such a days Tea almost feel the date.So short the way i t seems; and now They're centuries from that.How pleased they were at what you said;You try to touch the smile.And dip your fingers in the frost: then was i t , can you te l l .You asked the company to tea.Acquaintance, just a few,AM chatted close with th is grand thing That don't remember you?Past bows and invitations,Past interview, and vow,past what ourselves can estimate,-That makes the quick of woe.'l

Her “fa ith to regulate" to th is •quick of woe" lo one ofher meet constant endeavors, made more d iff icu lt by her scepti­cal a ttitude toward trad itional religion; and she writes:

Their height in heaven comforts met.Their glory nought to me;' f was best imperfect as I t was;I'm f in ite , I can 't see.The house c-f supposition. 1

1 OOBEleta Poems by. a n y . Moklnaon, pp.313-213.

61

That sk irts the acre of perhaps, To me shows insecure.

This timid l i f e of evidence Keeps pleading, nI don’t know.”l

I t is the very necessity of comfort which makes her believesImmortal is an ample word the® what we need is by.But when i t leaves us for a time 'T is a necessity.a #

St i l l baffled by the riddle of death and the nature of l i f ebeyond, she yet sta tes with absolute convictlent

This world is not conclusion;A sequel stands beyond.Invisible, as music.But positive, as sound.I t beckons and i t baffles;Philosophies don’t know.And through a riddle a t the la s t.Sagacity must go.To guess i t pussies scholars;To gain it,.men have shown Contempt of generations.And crucifixion known.3

Conventional ideas of Heaven often exasperate her because she feels so keenly the mystery o f1 ’’the Colossal substance of immortality*$4 i t is th is which causes her to writes

We pray to Heaven, We prate of Heaven-Re la te when neighbors At what o’clock to “ *

Who saw them wherefore fly?Is Heaven a place; and Sky. a face? Location’s narrow way Is for ourselves;

.a09-310.,p.268,

H TO

Unto the Dead ■There*b no geography.1

As a matter of fact, the Heaven of puritan trad ition doesn'tin the least appeal to her; the unconventionality of her Ideasis mirrored In the sly mischief of the following poems

I never f e l t a t home below.And in the handsome skies I shall not fee l a t hone I know,I don't like paradise.Because i t ' s Sunday a l l the time And recess never comes.And m e n 'll be so lonesome Bright Wednesday afternoons.I f God could make a v is i t .Or ever took a nap-So not to see us - but they sayHimself a telescopePerennial beholds u s ,- Myeelf would run sway From Him and Holy Ghost and a l l- But - there 's the Judgment Day.'3

At other times she expresses the other side of her feeling -the desire to imagine the beauty of Heaven and the realisationthat immortality is a mystery beyond human conception:

Heaven has different signs to me;Sometimes I think that noon Is but a symbol of the place,And when again at dawnA mighty look runs round the world And se ttle s In the h i l ls .An awe i f i t should be like that Upon the Ignorance s tea ls .The orchard when the sun is ®m;The triumph of the birds

e

63

Tha rapture of concluded day Returning to the Weet,- All these remind us of the place ffcet men c a ll "Paradise.11I tse lf a fa ire r we suppose.But how ourself shall beHot yet our eyes

r grace,eee. l

Thus, writing on the seme themes, Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson use very different subj eot-matter and express very different ideas. Christina Rossetti writes of nature in the conventional poetio manner and emphasizes its fleeting as­pects in terms of religious symbolism; with such usual elements she produces effects of great beauty. Bnily Dickinson reflects in her peetry an intimate companionship with nature and s ta r­t le s us by her unusual ideas and imagery; she gives a remarka­bly vivid impression of nature's fascination. Christina Ros­s e t t i chronicles l i f e as loving and grieving and praying, with often repeated.reflect ions in the manner of "Ecclesiastes* on the vanity of worldly th ings;.she expresses beautifully the pathos of l i f e and the quiet comfort of sp iritu a l resignation. Emily Dickinson regards l i f e as experiment and adventure, re­cording I ts paradoxes with keen realization of their irony and with questioning as to the source of tragedy; in the face of

64

anguish she makes triumphant expression of the self-reliance which produces superiority to fa te . Christina Rossetti through the mask of trad itional subject-matter portrays the unsatisfao- torinesQ of earthly lore and the urge toward religious renunci­ation of it? in these poems she reveals the tenderness and sor­row of love together with the hope for satisfaction in Heaven. Emily Dickinson unhesitatingly places the rapture of human love above even that of Heaven and describes i ts transport and i ts pain in accents of actual experience? she te l ls the emotions of love and loss and stoic endurance with poignant reality . Chris­tina Rossetti is altogether orthodox in her many poems of re - llgion, often simply echoing in poetic form the teachings of the Bible and the doctrines of the Anglican Church? she is the one woman whose ly rics of religious inspiration rank with the great religious poems of the English trad ition . Bally Dickinson trea ts many elements of trad itiona l relig ion with irreverent mischief and searches for a belief which w ill satisfy her own mind? she records the paradoxical conclusions of one who sees the evil as well as the good la l i fe , yet desires to believe In1 ' ' V - 1a loving Cod. Christina Rossetti veils the rea lity of death in peetle descriptions of nature and rest and pictures the trad i­tional Heaven of St.John and Dante? she writes exqblsite songs of the blessedness of death aid the ecstasy of immortal l i f e . Emily Dickinson relates in personal terms the rea lity of dying, the puzzled g rief of the survivors, and the wonder as to Heaven; with profound awe and scorn of conventional ideas, she expresses the mystery of death and immortality.

I t is evident that Christina Rossetti tre a ts each theme in a way which is predominantly a result of the influence of trad ition , while Emily Dickinson records the thoughts of an in­dividual who looks at the same themes from a fresh viewpoint.In the case of both of these poets, the subject-matter and ideas used are the natural ones for them, and the ir poetry has the appeal of equal sincerity . I t remains to compare them as to the sty le of their poetic expression.

Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson d iffe r not only in th e ir treatment of themes but also in such elements of poetic sty le as vocabulary, imagery, and versification. In the follow­ing section, we shall note these differences in style, which are largely a resu lt of the same opposing influences of trad i­tionalism and individualism that caused the divergence in sub­ject-m atter and ideas.

Vocabulary in Christina Rossetti*s Poetry

The vocabulary in some of Christina R ossetti*8 poetry, particu larly the ea rlie s t, is suggestive of the rather a r t i f i ­c ia l language of conventional poetic diction, as in "The Soli­tary R e s e t *

Oh happy rose, red rose, that bloomest lonely Where there are none to gather while they love thee;That a rt perfumed by thine own fragrance only.Resting like incense round thee and above thee;- Thou hearest nought save some pure stream that flows,0 happy rose.

lhat thoue^h for thee no nightingalee are singing?They chant one eve, Wt hush them in the morning.Hear thee no l i t t l e moths and bees are wingingTo s tea l thy honey when the day is dawning;-Thou. keep*st thy sweetness t i l l the twilight*s close,0 happy rose.Then re s t in peace, thou lone and lovely flower?Yea be thou glad, knowing that none are near thee,To mar thy beauty in a wanton hour.And scatter a l l thy leaves nor deign to wear thee.Securely in thy solitude repose,0 happy rose.1

I t is particularly in th is earlie r poetry alee, that she some­times shows (to quote the words of Edmund Gosse)

•a® entirely d irect and vivid mode of presenting to us the impression of riohly colored physical objects, a feat in which she sometimes rivals Keats and Tennyson.*3

This is very evident when she describes f ru its , especially in •Goblin Market*! and in "The Dead Gity, * from which the follow­ing stanzas are taken:

In green emerald baskets were Sun-red apples, streaked and fair?Here the nectarine and peach And ripe plum lay, and on each The bloom rested everywhere.Grapes were hanging overhead.Purple, pale, and ruby-red?And in panniers a l l around Yellow melons shone, fresh found.With the dew upon them spread.4

Bit most of her vocabulary ie composed of simple, fam iliarwords drawn from the Bible, with a flavor also of medieval days.Two poems which we have already quoted, "One Certainty*^ and

1 Christina R ossetti's Poetical Works, p.97. i Gossa, Edmund, C ritical Kit-Rats, p.144.8 Christina Rossetti*o Poetical Works, pp.1-8.* IM A., p .161. 6 PTSB.

67

*Hcs They Me Ire,1,1 give evidence of her uee of Biblical lan­guage. The amazing Influenoe of the Bible upon her poetry has been shown In an .Investigation by a German student, Ignat la Ireme, who made a collection of para lle l passages from the two.2 One poem, "A Testimony,"^ fr&uiein Breme shows to be a

peetlo paraphrase of the f i r s t and second chapters of "Boole-

scarcely distinguishable in sty le frcm the Biblical

Elton writes:•Her fountain of language Is the Bible, more especially the ly rica l, and of these the more sombre, portions: the prophets and - - - ^the 'Apeealnee1sometimes. *5

and theml * The more buoyant stra in of •Bong of Bongs1 is loudly heard

Walter de la Mare speaks of her success in such a use of the Bible as

•an achievement almost peculiar to herself- that of con­verting the prose of the Bible into verse, without grave lose of i t s concision, strength and beauty. •§

found in the simple, almost monosyllabic, yet a r tis t ic a lly per­fec t poem •tJp-Hlll: •

1 »o.Sg-57.

Vol.TI, p.103.»" 1” Escaya_bj; dlyere

Does the road wind up -h ill a l l the way?Yes. to the very end.Will the day's journey take the whole long day? from mom to night, my friend.But is there for the night a resting-place?A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.May not the darkness hide I t from my face?You cannot miss that inn.Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?Those who have gone before.Then must I knock, or ca ll when just in sight? They w ill not keep you standing at that door.Shall I find comfort,, travel-sore and weak?Of labour you shall find the sum.Will there be beds for me and a l l who seek? Yea, beds for a l l who ooma.l

Vocabulary in Bully Dickinson's Poetry

Emily Dickinson's vocabulary is one of the very individ­u a l features of her poetry*, as is evident in a l l the poems we have quoted. Marsden Bartley says!

•Those who care for the vivid and living element in words w ill find her, to say the leas t, among the masters in her feeling for the ir strange shapes and for the fresh sig­nificances contained in them, "a

The language of conventional poetic diction is almost complete­ly absent from her poetry, as Clement Wood points out:

•That fumigation of the vocabulary, which eradicates a l l poetic left-overs of dead speech, and which is one of the negative virtues of present-day poetry, is hers in high degree. An occasional inversion or re trea t into the solemn style is found; tu t she was far too fa ith fu l to rea lity to parrot . . . . She had something defin ite to say; even i f i t were a mystic nebulosity, i t was vlsion-

1 Ohrlstli Hartley

1918.65:97, August 16,

Her search for an unhackneyed vocabulary is described by Tmeblood, in speaking of her "rare and singular sense of words!1 : '

«WordB, to her, were a festival? and ehe spent . . . hours.with the d ic tio n a ry ,... finding again the hid* den, vivid textures in old meanings, restoring for herself the lost edges of ordinary expression, search­ing but the forgotten hut astounding faces of custom­ary words.*8

And McGregor Jenkins says that she had*& passionate desire to use the one word which would express the subtlest shade of color, sense and mean­ing, which would translate for others the delicate fabric of her thought and emotion.*3

This "passionate desire1 caused her to consider many different words in the attempt to find the best, and led to a trouble­some problem for her editors. The copies of her poems found a fte r her death often had many tentative variations lis ted , with no indication as to which she would ultimately choose. Mabel Loomis Todd, who did most of the work of editing, men­tions the alternative words suggested for the second line of the following poem about the humming bird!

A resonance of emerald,A rush of cochineals

The mall from Tunis, probably.

70

A@ possible substitutes for revolving. Bully Dickinson badw ritten 6t^the.bottom of tho page on ono oopy «Delusive,*•’dissembling,* "dissolving,* and * renewing* • The word whichwas retained was chosen by Mrs.Todd because Emily Dickinsonhad used i t in her most carefully made copy, Mrs.Todd adds:

" It often seemed as i f suggested alternatives were only to make her meaning clearer, more unmistakable, and a l­most never to smooth rhyme or rhythm. These, to her, were of secondary Importance.*1

The vocabulary of her poetry belongs to an amazing rangeof subjects. Genevieve Taggard l i s t s over two hundred andf if ty "legal terms"* found in her poems, and quotes one of thelove poems which contains eight legal words in as many lines:

Mine by the right of the white election.*Mine by the royal seal?Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison Bars oannot conceal?Mine, here in vision and in veto?Mine, by the grave’s repealTitled, confirmed,- delirious charter?Mine, while the ages steal?*

Josephine p o l l i t t mentions m ilitary terras in her poetry, such as "promoted - escape - dungeon - fortress - drums - marksman - target - shot - skirmish - salute - ba ttle - swords - bu lle ts - cannon - soldiers - trench - epauletted,"* as well as others referring to the sea. In her poems are also found such solen- 1 * 3

1 Todd, Mabel D., "Bally Dickinson’s Literary Debut," Harper’s Magazine. 160:465, March, 2930.

pp.375-381.3 Complete “Complete Poe 4 fb llT tt, Josi l i i t t , Josephine, }

Her Poetry, p.810.

71

t l f lo words ae mlorosoope, telescope, chemist, oxygon, car- . bonatea, sargeon, e lec tric ity , mathematics, atom, ratio , stamens, entomology, comparative anatomy, astronomy, etc.Some of the unusual geographical names are: Hlmmaleh, Potosl, fevay, Alban, Bneiper, tan Dl@m#n<m land, TenerIffe. Cordil­le ra , Chlmbarasu,; and Zanzibar. Similar l i s t s could be made out for other types of vocabulary, showing the interest she had in words .

The following poem furnishes an example of the varied connotations suggested by the words she uses. In contrast with the simplicity of Christina R ossetti's vocabulary!

The north, tonight.'So adequate i t s forms.So preconcerted with i ts e lf , So d istan t to alarms,- An unconcern so sovereign To universe, or me.I t paints my simple sp ir it With t in ts of majesty.T ill I take vaster attitudes. And s tru t upon my stem, Disdaining men and oxygen, fo r arrogance of them.My splendors are menagerie?But th e ir competeless-Bhow'' Will entertain the centuries When I am, long ago.An island in dishonored grass. Whom none but daisies know.l

Imagery in Christina R ossetti's Poetry

Christina Rossetti made great use in her poetry of similes, symbolism, and allegories. Her similes usually belong to the 1

1 Complete poma of Sally Dleklnaen. p.140.

73

common stock, of poetry, and add a series of pictures as a de­corative olement In the poems; as Untermayor says:

■She was prone to pile.up comparisons; some of her most admirable poems . . . are l i t t l e more than a chain of threaded sim iles.«1

■A Birthday*8 (quoted In the discussion of her love poems) is an example of the beautiful effect achieved by th is p iling up of similes. In the long poem of "Goblin Market,8 there are many passages of "threaded sim iles," such as the following:

Like a l i ly from the beok'Like a moonlit poplar branch,Like a vessel a t the launch When i ts last re stra in t Is gone.3

Instead of similes of • beauty, the imagery ofmany of her poems Is symbolism whloh Is defin itely religious in origin. As Watte-Dunton says, "the passion for symbolism.•. Is one of the ohief features of her poetry. "4 Her symbolical

ready been mentioned; most of her other symbolism Is derived from the "Song of Songs" and "Revelations* (see also the sec­tion of th is thesis dealing with "Death and Immortality" in her poetry). The f i r s t two stanzas of "I Know You Rot" are fu ll of such symbolism:

0 Christ, the Vine with living fru it ,The twelvefold-fruited Tree of Life,The Balm In Gilead a fte r s tr ife ,

.. ......... ....................................... ...pi,,,,,,,.... .

.35.

p.186.

* Untermeyer, Louis, 3 B.31.

73

The Valley-lily and the Rooej Stronger than Lebanon Thou. Root;Sweeter than clustered grapes Thou Vine;0 best, Thou vineyard of red wine,Keeping Thy best wine t i l l the close.Pearl of great price Thyself alone.And ruddier than the ruby Thou;Most precious lightening Jasper stone.Head of the corner spurned before:Fair gate of pearl. Thyself the Door;Clear golden s tree t. Thyself the Way;By Thee we journey toward Thee now, ,Through Thee shall enter heaven one day.1

Her allegories are many and nearly a l l teach a moral les­son, though usually not in a way which mars their poetio quali­ty . Each of them is worked out In her own way but they show the influence of allegories by other w riters: "An Old World Thicket*3 is suggested by the opening phrase of Dante*e Divine Comedy. "From House to Heme”3 has element# which remind one of Tennyson*s "Palace of Art," the horror on the eea described in "A Ballad of Boding"* is not unlike parts of Coleridge's "An-

romanoes, and "Goblin Market"® is olosely kin to fairy ta lessuch as Hems Christian Andersen wrote; All of the allegoriesnamed above are among her longest poms. Shorter allegoriesare "Amor Mundi,»7 "Up-Hill*8 (quoted in the section on the vocabulary of her p o e tr^ and personifications such as the fol­lowing with i ts traces of pilgrim 's

Climb at the ir ©all, a l l soallng heaven toward Love

pp.55-58..,pp .374-375. 8 P.88.

74

Fear hath least grace but great expediency;Faith and Humility show grave and strong; Prudence and Hope mount balanced equally. Obedience marches marshalling th e ir throng.Goes f i r s t , goes la s t, to le f t hand or to rights And a l l the six u p lif t a pilgrim’s song.By day they rest not, nor they rest by night; While Love within them, with them, over them, Weans them and woes them from the dark to ligh t. Bach p lies for s ta ff not reed with broken stem, But olive branch in pledge of patient peace; T ill Love being the irs In Hew Jerusalem Transfigure them to Love, and so they cease.Love Is the sole beatitude above;All other graces, to their vast Increase Of glory, look on Love and mirror Love.1

Imagery in Emily Dickinson's poetry

Probably Bally Biekinson’s chief claim to feme lies in the remarkable freshness and vigor of her poetic imagery. The poems already quoted prove that hers is not conventional image­ry added for decorative effect or used for symbolism and a lle ­gory of trad itional type, but Imagery which is entirely individ­u a l and often forms the most in teresting feature of her poetry. Martha Shaokford w rites;

"The most apparent instances of th is keen shrewd delight In challenging convention . . . are to be found in her imagery. Although her similes and metaphors may be de­void of languid aeothetio elegance, they are quivering to express living ideas."®

Louis Untermeyer says;"The freedom of her sp ir it manifests i ts e lf in the auda­city of her Images, the wild leap of her ep ithets."3

18 ChristinaShaokford,

277.Dickinson," Atlantic

1913.erlcan Poetry, p.9.

75

He speaks also of■the rapid ascent of images and the sudden swoop of im- seneitles , the keen epithet that cuts to the deepest layer of consolousnaso, and the paradox on whose point innumerable angels dance,*1

And h© proceeds to l i s t some favorite examples of her imagery:■Her gnomic Imagery was tremendous in Implication and the range far greater than a f i r s t reading reveals; . . . her tiny quatrains are lavish with huge ideas and al­most overpowering figures. She sneaks of music as the «silver s tr i f e;1 she sees the railway tra in *lap the miles and lick the valleys up;1 she speaks ironically of sp littin g the lark to find the musio *bulb afte r bulb in s ilver ro lled;1 she pictures the thunder crumb­ling ‘like a stuff* while the lightning ‘skipped like mice;1 she glimpses evening as ‘the house-wife in the west1 sweeping the sunset ‘with many colored brooms;1 she asks ‘who laid the rainbow n ie r s .‘ pondering on the power of words, she meditato8~Q2

Could ao rta l lip divine The undeveloped freight Of a delivered syllable, _‘T would crumble with the weight.3

As Trueblood points out, “her characteristic figure, per­haps, is metaphor.■& she uses with great s k il l th is most con­densed of a l l figures; often a poem is composed of a single b rie f metaphor, yet i ts vividness suggests whole dramas of experience. Such a poem is the one beginning *1 never hear the word escape,*5 which has already been quoted; Imagery of imprisonment is found also in many other poems. M ilitary in origin is her metaphor for the poem -which begins as follows: 1 2 3 4

1 Untermoyor, Louis,2 m id ., p.39.3 Complete po4 fflrn&biood,‘5

p.37.

on,* Dial. 80:310, April,p.30.

70

tiese dramatic txit equally effective is the metaphor by which she pays tribu te to the power of a great book:

He ate and drank the precious words, Hie s p ir i t grew robust}He knew no more that he was poor. Her that hie frame was duet.

Many times there is a sly humor in her linking of strange ele­ments to form the metaphor:

God is a d istant, s tately Lover,Woos, so He te l ls us, by His Son. Surely a vicarious courtship!Miles* and P r is c il la 's such a one.But le s t the soul, like fa ir P risc illa , Ohoose the envoy and spurn the Groom, Touches, with hyperbolic archness. Miles aid John Aldan Are synonym.3

Examples could be added indefinitely, but only one more poem w ill be quoted - th is to show the freshness she gives to image­ry of homely simplicity:

A fa ire r house than Prose, More numerous of windows, Superior of doors.Of chambers, as the cedars-s w a v S r s a i . , «=,The gables of the sky.

18

p.13.

1 F o rth ,, poaaa of B ally DloUnBOn, p.M B.

77

Of vieItore - the fa iree t- ror occupation - th is-

OhriBtina R ossetti*b »delieate a r tis try in the technique of v@rse"3 is aoclalmed by a l l c r itic s , Elton says she is «one of the safest a r t is ts among the English poets« and speaks of her "musical perfection.1* A. Hamilton Thompson writes in

"She expressed herself with a variety of meter aid rhythm and a musical power unequalled by any other English poet­e ss .*5 . . . '

The variety of meter and rhythm. she uses includes most of the important metric forms of the English trad ition . The meter ef her poems is generally iambic, though trochee and anapest are handled equally well; the line length varies from two feet to as many as seven, stanzas likewise are of almost every con­ceivable length from couplet to paragraph-like divisions of forty or f if ty lines in "Goblin Market;1® they have varied

p .30 . le f t hand in has been

areused for a l l poems; but the two quoted in t h i s seotion spaced as Christina Rossetti arranged them, since th is seems to bring out more clearly the musical qualities of her versification.

iead,Edith^ Christina Rossettl^and her p ° e t r^ j ^ l l 8.

L.1T, p.83. Tol.XIlI. The Blne-

pp.1- 8,

78

rhyme schemes,t using masculine, feminine. Imperfect and in­ternal rhyme,beeides monorhyme. The verse forms include lyrics, sonnets (Petrarchan), ballads, carols, roundels, and long nar­rative poems, as well as variations of each and forms with the irregularity of vers l ib re . Probably her greatest successes are found among the shorter ly rics, seme of which, as Gosse says, are "not unworthy to be classed with the melodies of Shakespeare* of Burns, of Shelley."* 3 *- Poems which have been Quoted illu s tra te her use of various meters and rhythms? per­haps attention should be called to these examples of different verse forms; ly ric - "A Birthday,"8 Petrarchan sonnet- "Time f l ie s,"3 ballad-measure- "Bp-Hill,"* carol- "Before the paling of the stars,"S roundel- "As the voice of many waters,"6 and monorhyme- "Passing away, saith the world."7

Whatever type of versification she may wee, almost without exception the effect is one of "musical perfection." Her poet­ry shows, as Dorothy Stuart says, "an almost miraculous percep­tion of the harmonies inherent in words," and the rhythm of her lines "seems to be obedient to some natural law, •as music of s ta rs that ohirne.I"8 Perhaps no poem exceeds "A Hope Carol" in "the melodiousness, the pure clear ring""which according to Josephine DaWilde forms "the greatest charm"* of her poetry;

—3 Edmund.^C ritical Kit-Hats, n.153^ ^ ^7 *,44.• Stuart, Dorothy, Christlua R osse tti.^.178^ p.184.

p.56.

79

AI h

if was near, a day en a day and * '

heaid a s h ir r of wing on wing,Bat could not see tho eight?5 to see the birds that sing,

long to see.Below the s ta rs t beyond the moon.

Between tlI heard a r!I long to^seTth* pipes aid

Whereon the minstrels play?I long to see each face that sings,

, . 1 long to. see,Today or may be not today.

To-night or not to-night,AH voices that command or pray,

Galling me.Shall kindle in my soul- such f ire

And in my eyes such lightThat I shall see that heart's desire

I long to see.2-Among the devices by which she achieves th is musio may

be mentioned a llite ra tio n and assonance, balance repetition,refrain and cadence. Untermeyer, speaking of her "melodicgrace,* eayst

"She del rhyme, p terously as trad itionally effects that oration. She emp tion, that r Many of her am nets

oint of s as dex-

Her style is she does not disdain

, _ of our obalance with skill? uses rsp<

th complete security, th adroit echoing,

me of her finest son- , _ w 1The irresponsive s i­

lence of the land1) are achieved by the pairing of figures and the building up of tone on tone, the re­peated word insinuating i t s e l f like a muffled but dram matlo drum. *3 . . .

is tin a3 Untermeyer,

eitii p.380. try, p.35.

Her use of suoh dev lees is never e # Twelve; the effect of her poetry is always one of simpllolty and naturalness. Is Josephine DaXiilde saye;

•fhe meaning of her poetry Is never obscured by the form.. . .The current of her song flows so smoothly that the art is forgotten.* *1

Walter de la Mare, whose own poetry shows a similar magic comments thus on the appropriateness of the meter and rhythm in her poems $

" It is the ir poise, rhythm, cadences that convey her in­most implications and emotions; I t is th e ir secret oon- gruity of sound that Is the very essence of their poetic meaning.*3

Largely because of her sk ill in versification comes "that heart haunting beauty with which she . . . could endow the sim­p lest thoughts and the most unlaboured forms."3 I t is suoh beauty we find in the poem en titled "Echo* - a poem which tru ly echoes the thought and form typical of moh of her poet­ry:

Come to me in the silence of the night;Ome in the speaking alienee of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright As sunlight on a stream;

0*s# back in tears,0 memory, hope, love of finished years.0 dream how sweet, too sweet, too b i t te r sweet.

Whose wakening shwld have been in Paradise, Where souls brlmfull of love abide and meet;

8 7 9 6That opening, le ttin g in, le ts m t no more.

leWilde, Josephine, Christina Rossetti .Poet and Woman.* la Hare, Walter, Christina Rossetti, in EsBayoby'dStuart;1Dorothy) Christina Rossetti, p.160.

81

Yet oome to me In dreams, that I may live' My very l i f e again though sold in death;

Come hack to me in dreams, that I may give pulse for pulse, breath for Breath!

Speak low,, lean loir,Ab long ago. By lore, how long ago.l

Versification in Sully Dickinson^ Poetry

The f i r s t impression of Sally Dickinson^ versification Is likely to be i ts almost complete laok of variety coupled with the consciousness of curious Irregularity in i t s seeming monotony of form. She uses over and over one of the simplest and most fam iliar of trad itional meters: the quatrain composed of tetrameter alternating with trim eter. Many poems contain only one quatrain, others have two printed without a break be­tween, more have two separate quatrains; less commonly she uses a greater number, with twelve as the maximum number in any poem. Occasionally she follows th is form with metrical precision, as in the following poem:

We never know how high we are T ill we are called to rise ;And then, i f we are true to plan,Our statures touch the skies.The heroism we rec ite Would be a daily thing.Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be a king,3

But generally several irregu la rities occur before the end of the poem, sometimes to the extent that the original pattern is soaroely recognisable. Instead of the expected rhyme there may

m Obrlst * b'catple

bo near-xhymo, assonance, or no rhyco at a ll; instecA of even meter, a line may either have additional,syllables or lack several; instead of the usual grammatical construction, there is often an inversion or e llip s is or actual incorrectness which

meaning. Blankenship sayss"Emily Dickinson allowed nothing to stand between her and the expression of that burst of flame that was her emo­tion , So tremendous are her imaginative flig h ts and so overpowering is her wish to make articu la te her vision

from such disregard for conventional rules:

Utmost is munificence; _Leas, though larger. Poor.8

The irregu larities of her poetry have caused i t to be con­demned by a few c r itic s who demand teohnioal perfection, con­doned by some who consider that such lapses do not obscure her genius, and praised by others who ha il her ae the fore-runner of that poetic emancipation from trad ition advocated by Imagists and similar moderns. A particu larly outspoken member of the f i r s t group was he who wrote to the "Contributor's Club" of the

—3^ in 1898, regarding the "poetic chaos" of the — ----- ------— —----- ;--------- -— ----- --------------;----

two earlies t volumes of her poetry: .“The inoohersnoo and for/Alcssnoss of her - I don*t know how to designate them - versioles are fa ta l....O b liv ion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.**

Christina Rossetti was among those who recognised her geniusin spite of euoh irregu larities; she wrote to her brother inDecember, 1890:

“There is a book too I might have shown you, if I had re­membered: Roams by Emily Dickinson, la te ly sent me from America - S it perEeps you know i t . She had (for she is dead) a wonderfully Blakean g if t , but therewithal a s ta r t­ling recklessness of poetlo ways and means.*3

Amy Dowell lead in the oommendation by hnagists who praised herlack of conformity with trad itional rules:

*A11 the poetry with which she was familiar was metrical and rhymed. She tried to tie her genius down to the pat­tern and signally failed . But she was too much of ah ar­t i s t to cramp herself beyond a certain point. *3

I t cannot be denied that in some oases the Irregu laritiesof expression detract from the enjoyment of her poems? butmany of these poems, as Lewieohn points out, are really only•notes and fragments* while others arc simply not up to herstandard, and he adds:

“The poet of eight hundred poems is entitled to a high proportion of imperfect work.. . . I t is tim e.. . to dis­engage her clear and lovely successes.**

That her sueeesses are, in Ms words, "many and varied andhigh*5 can be proved by most of the poems we have quoted; these

69!143-144,January,1832r * J.-yar, uipp. 176-177p.358.

66

mar be noted as especially deeerving the classification of "clear and lovely buccetioeei« "I ta s te a liquor never bre?/ed,*1 "There came a day at feummer’c f u l l , "3 and "Heaven hae d iffe r­ent eigne to ne ."5 in these and countless additional poems is found »a certain ly ric incisiveness, a bright passionate brevi­ty" which frueblood says is "perhaps her principal lite ra ry q u a l i t y . T h e r e is in her poetry - to use the words of Mabel Locaiis Todd - "a strange cadence of inner rhythmical myeicj*6 partly a result of meter and assonance, i t comes even more from her s k ill in compressing within the narrow confines of her

verse-form great ideas and deep, emotion, without losing an ef­fect of artless spontaneity. Untermeyer writes of her poetry:

"Emotion* idea, and words are not marshalled in th e ir usual order; they spring simultaneously, inevitably, one including the other. Here is the effect, never the af­fectation, of emotion and i ts enveloping p h r a s e . "6

In the following poem can be seen the qualities mentioned abovetOut of sight? m a t of that?See the bird reach it.’Carve on curve, sweep on sweep.Bound the steep a ir .Danger.* What is that to her?B itte r *t is to f a i l there Than debate here.Blue is blue the world through.Amber* amber; dew, dew.Seek friend, and see -

14 ¥.35. 3 37-38. ; 3 ^p.63-63.

Trueblood, Cfharles, "Emily Dickinson, * Dial, 80:303, April, ■ 1936. , ' :v

(Introduction byMabel Loomis Toaaj, p .y .

utermeyer, Louis. Modern American

Heaven is sky of earth That's a l l -Bashful Heaven, thy lovers small Hide too, from thee.1

There is about such poems “the effect of inev itab ility which,«says Babette Deuteoh, «is the hallmark of well-wrought verse,proving Edward Sapir's statement:

•While her outward patterned form is frequently unsatis­fying even within I ts unpretentious range, the essential significant form, as idea in imaged embodiment, is nearly always perfect and sometimes transeendently beautiful. *3

Oearad Aiken gives the best summary of the effect of herversification:

"Everywhere, when one f ir s t comes to these poems, one seems to sea nothing but a colourless dry monotony. Hew deceptive a monotony, concealing what reserves of depth and splendour; what su re tie s of mood and tone. Once adjust oneself to the spinsterly angularity of the mode, i ts naive and often prosaic directness, one discovers fe l ic i t ie s of thought and phrase on every page. The magic is terse and sure. And ultimately one simply sighs a t Hiss Dickinson's singular perversity, her lapses and tyrannise, and accepts them as an inevitable part of the strange and original genius she was.*4

The poem "This was a Poet" furnishes an excellent example ofthe weaknesses and strength of her verse, and at the same timeaffords a strik ing statement of the impression her own poetryleaves upon the reader:

This was a Poet-I t is thatD is ti l ls amazing sense

la y , 3SSS.3 Sapir, Edward, "Emily Dickinson,a Primitive," Poetry, 26:104, , Hay, 2925.4 Aiken, Conrad, "Emily Dickinson." Dial. 76:308, April, 1334.

86

From osdlnayy Meanings,Ani a tta rs so. immense from the fam iliar species That perished by the door, le wonder i t was not OurselvesArrested i t before.Of pictures the disclose*- The poet, i t is he. Entitles us by contrast To oeaOf portion so unconscious The robbing could not harm, Himself, to him, a fortune Exterior to Time.l

' • — . . . . . . Him . ; . ,

Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson, as we have just noticed, exhibit the differences of traditionalism and individ­ualism in sty le as well as in treatment of themes. Christina Rossetti*s vocabulary is made up of "poetic words" and the lan­guage of the Bible; such a vocabulary gives to her poetry the simple oharm of fam iliar associations. Emily Dickinson1s vocab­ulary is composed of unhackneyed words drawn from a wide range of sources; the varied connotations of her words contribute much to the vivid orig inality of her poems. Christina R ossetti's imagery is decorative and religious symbol and allegory; her use of these conventional figures adds beauty and meaning to her poetry, Bnily Dickinson's imagery reveals the extraordinary freshness and vigor of her imagination; a single metaphor often constitutes a poem suggesting a whole drama of experience.

1 Farther toma of Bally Dickinson, p.12.

3?

C hristlm Bossett1*8 versification shows her command of a vari­ety of metric forms; the musical perfection of her poetry is probably i t s most appealing quality. Saily Dickinson's versi­fication indicates her lack of regard for trad itiona l tech­nique; the irregularity of her verse is transcended by the ly ric InoiBlvenese with which she expresses her individual poetic genius. For both Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickie* son, the vocabulary, the imagery, and the versification used are natural and appropriate to the subject-matter and ideas ex­pressed; consequently the differences In th e ir sty le merely add to the effectiveness of their expression.

I t has been shown that c r itic s rank Christina Rossetti and Bnily Dickinson as the greatest women poets of England and America. Because.they were born In the same year, the ir poetry has met the te s t of the same length of time and of c r itic s be­longing to the same period. Evidently the ir poetry has equal power of appeal, since both o f .them are given foremost ranking among women poets. Certain striking sim ilarities in th e ir lives, especially th e ir unhappy love affa irs and their years of seclusion, explain the fact that they were most interested in the inner l i f e and wrote on themes of nature, l i fe , love, re­ligion, death and immortality. Thus fa r the account runs almost p a ra lle l: equal rank as posts, contemporaneousness, sim ilar @lr» cumstanoea in their lives, use of same themes.

The vast difference between them is noted when the ir poet­ry is compared as to the treatment of themes and the style, ©hristina Rossetti writes of nature in the conventional manner, of l i fe in the mood of sp iritua l resignation^ of love in narra­tives about broken betrothals and saintly renunciations, of re­ligion in the most orthodox terms, of death and immortality in poetic descriptions of root and of the Row Jerusalem. Her vo­cabulary is drawn from poetic sources and the Bible, her Image­ry from similar sources, and her versification follows trad i­tional form# with musical perfection as i ts outstanding quality. In every respect, her subject-matter, ideas, and sty le show the Influence of trad ition . Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, portrays nature with close observation and unusual descriptions, l i f e with curiosity and fortitude, love with exultant and poig­nant realism, religion with irreverent mischief and paradoxical fa ith , death end Immortality with wonder at the mystery and *eom of conventional ideas. Her vocabulary contains many un­usual words, her Imagery is remarkably vivid, and her versifica­tion shows her refusal to be bound by trad itional rules. Her individuality of thought and of sty le is as marked as Christina R ossetti’s traditionalism .

In b rie f, Christina R ossetti’s poetry is traditional, while Emily Dickinson’s poetry is individual. Yet the poetry of both of them ranks equally high. Therefore, we must conclude that these two opposite types of poetry - the trad itional and the in­dividual - have fa irly equal p o ssib ilities of. lasting appeal.

BIBLIOGRAPHT: Christisa Rossetti 1

EoetSl

Macmillan Co., Hew York, 1904. (Reprinted 1938).

- - - - -

@ortoner. Hew York,1908.

1stIna, Roosettl»o Pp.et.ry,

Books

la id , Marjorie

llrkhead, m ith

Fard and A.R.Waller)

Cary, Elisabeth

Olutton-Brook, Arthur

De la Mare, Walter

s £ . « t i s a s e s .

Vol.

Iot 5 o rE / ISOo! *p p ,338-376,385-387

More eoBays^on religion Methuen,

"Christina Rossetti* In Essays

United Kingdom. Oxford University Press,Hot York, 1536. Pp.78-116.

1 Books marked * deal entirely with Christina Rossetti and her poetry.

#0

DeWilde, Josephine

Elton, Oliver

Ooeee, Edmund ,

Hudson, Williea

Hueffer, Ford Madox

Hunt, Violet

More, Paul Elmer

Peterson, Houston

Saintsbury, George

Stuart, Dorothy

Ss inhume, Algernon

Thomas, Eleanor

Wtermoyer, Douis

*Christina Posse University of A

tti,varsity of Amsterdam, 1933,

t o . ,c, 1920* Pp.32-30.

S S f l S e S h e .

^ ° t L Hl1llnateenthEc e n W L lteT a tU r9 6 .1 e li and Son,Ltd. ,tonion, 193?,Pp.143-145.

_ Harper .*•**. PP.60-77.

E.P.Dutton ,1933.

Pp.XII-xmietc.

Pp.134-143.

)6. Pp.393-394. t Chrlotina^Rossettl^ Maomlllan and

3 3 M S 8 P ' 113‘ ” 1 *” ' P 5 .73-74,"

ss,ller York, 1931.

« andi Oo?!‘lIroSYork, 1930° Pp #

91!

Walker,.High

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Woolf, Virginia

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198S. ■ .

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BenSt, William Rose

Benson, Arthur 0.

Dunbar, Olivia H.

Goeoe, Edmund

Gregg, Frederick J .

Rinkson, Katharine Tynan

Hueffer, Ford Madox

Kent, Muriel

"Round about Parnassus” Saturday Review of^Literature. 7:134,Septem-

”Christina Rossetti” Livinn: Age. 304!630-636, March 9, 1®K"The. Family Letters of Christinaf f i s r s t s s s , .

"Reminicoencea'of the Rossettis" Booh Buyer. 16!315-318, May, 1898."Scee Remlnlscenoes of ChristIna Rossetti" Bookman. 1:88-29. Rah-

g y ^ p y L ^ i ? m ^ 3o r e t t 1 '

■The Collected poems of Christina Rossetti* ^ Living Ace. 341:158-167;

■Christina Rossetti; A Reoonsidera-

98

Livingston, Luther "The Rirst Books of Some English Authors-IIX Dante Gabriel and Christina Georgina Rossetti* Bookman« 10:845-347, H07ember, 1899.

Leather, George i "Christina Rossetti" Contomoo-r a ^ Review. 104:681-689,' November,

lathor, ?. • "The Rossettis" Bookman, 49:139-147, April, 1919. ....; ; ..HeyneU, Alice "Christina Rossetti* Living Age,

304:569-573, March 3, 18%TMoore, Virginia •Christina R ossetti’s Centennial"

Yale Ievlev.(New series) 30:438-433, Sioemfesr, 1930.

Norton, Mrs. C. E. "The Angel in the Houso and the Boblin Market* Living Age. 79:134-139, October 17, IfeS .

Sharp, William "Some Reminieeenoes of Christina •Rossetti" Atlantic Monthlv.75:736-749, June7"The Rossettis" Fortnightly Re-v iea. 45:414-439, March, 1886.

Tynan, Katharine 5My F irs t Acquaintance - Santa Christina" Living Age. 373:431-436, February IT, IsTs.

Watte^Bunten, Theodore "Reminieeenoes of Christina Rossetti* nineteenth Centurv. 37:355-563. Feb- ruary ,.1895.

Waugh, Arthur "Christina Rossetti - Booember 5, 1830} December 5, 1930" Hlneteen-th^Centurv, 108:787-798, DeoemSerT"

Woolf, Virginia "Aurora Leigh" Yale Review. (Newseries) 30:677-630, June, 1931.■

Author not stated:

"Christina Georgina Roe- Dial. 18:37-89, January 16, 1895. eettl"

93

•The Death of Christina Rossetti* Public Opinion. 18:43,January 10,

ttMieo R o sse tti^ Goblin Market*

Living Age. 74:147-150, July 38, 18Go*

•Hie® R ossetti’s Poems* "The Rambler*•Readings from Hes Books*

Ration. 3:47-48, July IS, 1866. Book Buyer. 13:31, February, 1895. Living Age. 317:141-143, April 9,

. T5S8 . -•The Rossettis* Living Age. 311:500-508, November 31,

1598.

94

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Emily Dickinson 1

Postry ana. .Lett eM of .Bnlly Dickinson

nieoe.- - lozi toy her Bloklnaon Blanchi)

Edited toy Mabel Lorn Is Todd)

L ittle , BrOv?n, and Co., Boston, 1924.

L ittle , Brown, and Co., Boston, 1929.

Harper's, Hew York, 1931.

Bianohl, Martha Dieklnson

Blankenship, Russell

Brown, Ralph Wald®

American Literaturo ag an E%- p ession of t heHat ionalMlnd Henry Holt and Go., Hew York, 3931. Pp.578-9 79.

357.

Bheman, and Carl Van Boren)

Book III . Later Hational^Llter-

i Foers^rl* T p ' Z 1 ~ * *

1 Books marked * deal entirely with Emily Dickinson and herpoetry.

95

Higglneon, Thomas Wentoorth

Jenkine, MoGregOf

Josephson, Matthew

Knight, Grant G.

Lewlsohn, tsadwlg

Losrell, Amy

Pattee, Frank L,

p o l l l t t , Josephine

Taggard, S en erlw

Todd, Mabel Loomis

Contemporaries^ Houghton M ifflin

Boston, 190%. (Copyright by Roberts Bros.,Boston, 1890) P p .I lI-H .

f (F irst and Co,#

% 6 -363.

P p.sio-SA l"• (Reprinted In 1923)

_______ (Second, Le,Brtwn,ani Co.,

Boston,19CH. (Copyright by Roberts Bros.,Boston,1891) Pp.3-8.

l i l i 2a i 2§ e i 2| E , l S3 r OMrt-Pp.8-11, 35-40.

Untermeyer, Louis

Weirick, Bruce

Wood, OlGmentE B ^oT T H ^foll, 1935iPpp! 03-96,

Periodicala

Abbott, Bawrenoe

Aiken, Conrad

Barney,Margaret Higginaon

Bianohl,Martha Dickinson

Block, Louie

Bradford, Gamaliel

Demtsch, Babette

Fletcher, John Gould

Green, Clara 3.

Hartley, Marsden

HIggineon, Thomas Wentwerth

"Emily Dickinson* ' Dial. 76: 301-308, April, 1934.•Fragments from te ily Dickinson* Atlantlo^Monthly. 139:799-301,

"Emily Dloktneoa* Saturday Be- | i ^ g .Q .^ e r a t u r e , 1 ; # , ..Au^uet

•A Herr England lMn» Dial. 18: 146-147, March 1, 1895.“P ortraits of American Wcmen-VI Emily Dickineon" Atlantic Month- lyv 184:316-236. Aumist. MW.CA' Sojourn In Infinity" '69:303-306, May, 1933.•Homan and POGt" Saturday Be- view of Lit eratur a. 1:77-78,

•A Reminieoence of Emily Dicklmeem* Bookman. 60:391-393, Hoveraber, 1934.•Bally Dickinson” Dial. 65:95-97, August 15, 1910.•Emily Dick In son*e Letters*Atlantic^Monthly. 68:444-456, Octo­

il Editor's Study* (IF) Harper's Magazine.83:318-331,January, 1891.Howells, William Dean

97

Moore, Marianne

Parton, Ethel

Price,Warwick James

Sapir, Edward

Sergeant, Elizabeth

Sessions, Ruth H.

Shaokford, Martha H.

Sugden, Emily R.

Tate, Allen

Todd, Mabel Loomis

Trueblood, Charles K.

Untexaeyer, Louie

BEmily Dickinson8 poetry. 41:319-338, January, ISSST"Emily Dickinson8 Outlook,136:701-703, April 33, 1934."Three forgotten Poetesses8 Forum. 47:361-368, March, 1913."Emily Dickinson, a Primitive8 Poetry. 38:97-108, May, 1935."An Early Lnaglet" Kew Republic. 4:53-54, August 14, 1918."Emily Dickinson Face to laee8 Mation. 136:65-66, January 18,1933."The Poetry of Emily Dickinson" Atlantic Monthly. 111:83-97, Jama-i y , S 13."Eaily Dickinson" Saturday Review^ L i te r a tu r e , 7:128, September i3,

"Emily Dickinson* Outlook. 149:631-633, August 15, l§ fl‘."Emily Dickinson's Literary Debut" Harper's Magazine. 160:463-471, March, WM.

Saturday >7 Septam-

"Mise rd 's Emily"7:99

"Emily Dickinson8 Dial. 80:301- 311, April, 1838. ------"Colossal Substance", ^'Saturday

dSaturday Review

"A More Intimate Emily* ^ Saturday

r ^r ^ . lteratur9. 9:3(

Author not stated:

#Alabaster F illed with■ F la m e * -*American Leadership in

Medemist poetry9«Contributors* Club*

"Emily Dickinson*s Letters*

Current Opinion« 76:780, June, 1934.

Mterary Digest. 116:16, January 38,

Atlantic Monthly. 69:143-144. Jama-

Hat ion. 159:446-447 .December 13,1894."Our poetical I<

mm*England Literary Digest., 83:34, August S»

*##- - - ■*' w •"' ■ -» •

es t

i *

8 3 8 ?