Christina Rossettis Poetry: Controlled and Passionate Essay -- Cousin

Christina Rossetti's Poetry: Controlled and Passionate Rossetti's poetry has been described as both controlled and passionate. Making clear what you understand by the terms discuss which of these two views you have more sympathy with and why. Refer closely to at least three of the set poems. Christina Rossetti poetry uses concise structures but through these she expresses immense emotion; in this respect her poetry can accurately described as "both controlled and passionate" yet the two words are almost a paradox as passion is frequently seen to be at odds with controlled tight structures. Other poets have also followed in Rossetti's footsteps by combining tight structured poetic forms with emotion e.g. Dylan Thomas. L.E.L is a prime example of Rossetti's technique; it combines a complex structure with a very emotive outcry. The structure is very precise with each verse not only rhyming within itself, in an A, B, A, B, C, C, C pattern, but also within pairs of stanzas containing a pattern between them on the 5th to 8th lines. The 2nd and fourth lines provide visually rhyming lines throughout the poem connecting each verse although when the poem is read aloud the lines do not rhyme verbally. Rossetti also plays with structures in the poem, beginning with an elegiac stanza form ("a Quatrain of four iambic pentameters rhyming A, B, A, B" - Pears Cyclopaedia) before diversifying into her own version ending with C, C, C. The elegiac stanza form helps contribute to the passion by setting the tone for the poem while at the same time Rossetti alters the form to suit her needs showing creativity within her "control". The latter section of each stanza is in a different tone relating and contrasting the emot... ... with more flair in her earlier poetry, with later works settling into more conventional forms. Thus it is difficult to decide which argument to have more sympathy with as both control and passion are constantly intertwined and also changed as Rossetti grew older. Work Cited Rossetti, Christina. The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti. With Memoir and Notes &c. Ed. William Michael Rossetti. London; New York: Macmillan, 1904. Works Consulted Armstrong, Isobel. 'A Music of Thine Own': Women's Poetry. in: Joseph Bristow, Victorian Women Poets. Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Press Limited, 1995, 32-63. Harrison, Antony H. Christina Rossetti in Context. Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1988. Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti. A Literary Biography. London and Sydney: Pimlico, 1995.