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Moving Beyond The Mask: The Progression Of Women In Christina Rossetti's Poetry, Marianne Skoczek

Honors Papers

In this paper I will be concerned with one of these more neglected perspectives. I will be looking at the image of women as portrayed in Rossetti's non-devotional poetry, showing that, contrary to what I suppose could be called popular (literary) opinion, her women are often -- and increasingly so -- strong rather than weak, and that Rossetti herself was a conscious observer and critic of the "options" open to the Victorian woman. Given the emphasis that my work will take, I shall also be looking at various aspects of the poet's personal life, some of which have been largely …