ROSSETTI LIFE OVERVIEW: born 1830, started writing age 12, and at 18 she had her first professional
publication in a magazine. Goblin Market and Other poems (1862), The Prince’s Progress and Other
Poems (1866) -> Good Friday and Twice, A Pageant and Other Poems (1881). Numerous health
issues, deeply religious. Brothers in pre-Raphaelite -> sister maria became a nun. Died 1894.
‘Theatre is a mirror, a sharp reflection of society. The greatest playwrights are moralists.’ (Yasmina
Reza)
‘The illusion I wished to produce is that of reality.’ ‘ we are no longer living in the days of shakespeare’
letter he wrote to writer Edmund Gosse in 1874-> ADH was realistic, containing no verse, no
soliloquies and no asides
Characters in DH being flawed = naturalistic
DH -> written in 1879
Ibsen often referred to as ‘The father of Modern Drama’ and ‘The father of realism’
Ibsen’s plays performed all over the world, second only in frequency to Shakespeare’s
Christiania Theatre established in 1832 (Oslo) -> employed Danish theatre artists who performed in
Danish, plays by Danish authors
Dominant theatrical form in C19th was melodrama -> all emotions expressed externally + very
theatrical
• Still melodramatic tropes (concealed letter, blackmailer, etc) + Act 2 full of music and
dancing -> hair loose
• Eric Bogh 1879 ‘It is beyond memory since a play so simple in its action and so every day
in its dress made such an impression of artistic mastery’ and ‘not a single declamatory
phrase, no high dramatics, no drop of blood, not even a tear; never for a moment was
the dagger of tragedy raised’
• Characters in DH had ‘seemingly easy but concealing conversations’ -> Ibsen,
interested in sub-text
Nora wants to behave like a melodramatic heroine putting love before legality. Torvald longs to
also cast himself as a hero -> equally melodramatic
ADH CHARACTERS:
Nora Helmer – mother to three children, friend to Dr Rank and Christine Linde, in debt to Nils
Krogstadd
Torvald Helmer – Friend to Dr Rank, distrustful of Nils Krogstad, vice-president of the bank
Christine Linde – Childhood friend of Nora Helmer (estranged for 10 years), widowed, former lover of
Nils Krogstad, Hired by Torvald to replace Krogstad
Dr Rank – Admirer of Nora, visits them on a daily basis. Medical Doctor, suffereing from an incurable
illness -> anticipating own death
Nils Krogstad – secretly provided Nora with Money. Disliked by Torvald due to fraudulent past. Loses
job at the bank. Seeks to blackmail Nora.
,
,LOVE
ROMANTIC
Rossetti – Whilst ‘A Birthday’ and ITRT suggest possibility of love, overall love is fleeting and
painful, emphasises its instability and transience, should focus more on love of God.
SOEUR LOUISE DE LA MISERICORDE – transience of passion
• ‘Now the days are over of desire / Now dust and dying embers mock my fire’
• ‘Longing and love, pangs of perished pleasure / Longing and love, a disenkindled fire /
And memory a bottomless gulf of mire / And love a fount of tears outrunning measure’
SHUT OUT – loss and longing
• ‘It had been mine, and it was lost’
TWICE – betrayed by romantic love, found constancy in God’s love
• ‘You took my heart in your hand’
• ‘As you set it down it broke, / Broke, but I did not wince’
• ‘My hope was written on sand’ (LINK -> Nora thinking everything will be ok)
CONTEXT: Rossetti had several relationships which progressed towards engagement. Difficulty
of choosing between earthly romantic love and heavenly love, which evidently, she had to do
twice -> led her to great soul-searching and heartbreak.
• Late teens -> engaged to James Collinson, a painter in the pre-Raphaelite movement,
but broke off engagement when he became catholic in 1850
o SHUT OUT - > suggested it was written as a response to the ending of Rossetti’s
engagement with Collinson. As crump shows in her notes, an earlier edition of
the poem had the subtitle “What happened to me”.
o Following this train of thought Sawtell has interpreted the spirit to either be
Frances and Maria, who did not approve of the relationship, or God splitting up
the couple because of Collinson’s decision to go back to Catholic church)
• Charles Cayley -> rejected his proposal as he couldn’t share her Anglican faith with her
-> remained very close friends until his death, when he left her all his
manuscripts (he was a noted linguist)
-> her brother William said ‘Although she would not be his wife no
woman ever loved a man more deeply or constantly’
• John Brett -> refused him as well
• Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s poem ‘A man’s requirements’ -> male speacher puts
stringent requirements on how a women should love him, ends by saying ‘Thus if thous
wilt prove me, Dear, / Woman’s love no fable. / I will love thee – half a year - / As a man is
able.’ October 1846
, CRITICS:
D. Amico
➔ Rossetti did not see much difference between the woman who sells herself in marriage,
who doesn't marry for genuine love, and the woman has sexual experience before
marriage because she is fooled by the promises of human love. Both are guilty of placing
things on earth before God.
Harrison
➔ ‘Such is the case in all of Christina Rossetti’s poems whose focus is not on the
possibility of fulfilling earthly love, or upon betrayal in love, but rather upon the
apparently inevitable culmination of all compulsive amatory passions -renunciation.
Webster about a birthday
➔ ‘consider if there is an autobiographical element in the poem, as it may recall the happy
time when one of her suitors first declared his love.’
Ibsen- Also showcases love as an illusion, illusory though because of social norms and gender
expectations inhibiting true connection -> showcases tragic consequences + tendency to
obscure reality, places more importance on self-love after Nora’s awakening. Question of
identity -> how can you love someone truly if you only love the performative version of their
identity
• ‘I did it for love, didn’t I’
• ‘Once upon a time he’d have done anything for my sake’ Christine
• ‘You see, Torvalds so hopelessly in love with me that he wants me all to himself’
• ‘You know how much Torvald loves me -he’d never hesitate for an instant to lay down his
life for me’
• ‘This is the first time you and I, man and wife, have ever had a serious talk together’
• 'It's your fault I have done nothing with my life'
CONTEXT:
• 18 -> affair with servant girl Else Jensdatter, who became pregnant, working as an
apprentice to a pharmacist in Grimstad he was already badly paid (couldn’t afford
underclothes, socks or food) and then had to pay support payments for 14 years.
Probably never met their son Hands Jacob Henriksen.
• 1878 -> Ibsen received a letter from a friend, Laura Kieler.
o Summer 1871 -> She had visited Dresden and met Ibsen, who called her his
‘skylark’
o Like Torvald Hemler, Kieler’s husband had been seriously ill with tuberculosis,
leading her to contract secret debts for a southern holiday.
o She asked Ibsen’s help in publishing her new novel, Ultima Thule, to meet the
payments. Ibsen refused -> saying it was poorly written and encouraged her to
tell her husband about the debt
publication in a magazine. Goblin Market and Other poems (1862), The Prince’s Progress and Other
Poems (1866) -> Good Friday and Twice, A Pageant and Other Poems (1881). Numerous health
issues, deeply religious. Brothers in pre-Raphaelite -> sister maria became a nun. Died 1894.
‘Theatre is a mirror, a sharp reflection of society. The greatest playwrights are moralists.’ (Yasmina
Reza)
‘The illusion I wished to produce is that of reality.’ ‘ we are no longer living in the days of shakespeare’
letter he wrote to writer Edmund Gosse in 1874-> ADH was realistic, containing no verse, no
soliloquies and no asides
Characters in DH being flawed = naturalistic
DH -> written in 1879
Ibsen often referred to as ‘The father of Modern Drama’ and ‘The father of realism’
Ibsen’s plays performed all over the world, second only in frequency to Shakespeare’s
Christiania Theatre established in 1832 (Oslo) -> employed Danish theatre artists who performed in
Danish, plays by Danish authors
Dominant theatrical form in C19th was melodrama -> all emotions expressed externally + very
theatrical
• Still melodramatic tropes (concealed letter, blackmailer, etc) + Act 2 full of music and
dancing -> hair loose
• Eric Bogh 1879 ‘It is beyond memory since a play so simple in its action and so every day
in its dress made such an impression of artistic mastery’ and ‘not a single declamatory
phrase, no high dramatics, no drop of blood, not even a tear; never for a moment was
the dagger of tragedy raised’
• Characters in DH had ‘seemingly easy but concealing conversations’ -> Ibsen,
interested in sub-text
Nora wants to behave like a melodramatic heroine putting love before legality. Torvald longs to
also cast himself as a hero -> equally melodramatic
ADH CHARACTERS:
Nora Helmer – mother to three children, friend to Dr Rank and Christine Linde, in debt to Nils
Krogstadd
Torvald Helmer – Friend to Dr Rank, distrustful of Nils Krogstad, vice-president of the bank
Christine Linde – Childhood friend of Nora Helmer (estranged for 10 years), widowed, former lover of
Nils Krogstad, Hired by Torvald to replace Krogstad
Dr Rank – Admirer of Nora, visits them on a daily basis. Medical Doctor, suffereing from an incurable
illness -> anticipating own death
Nils Krogstad – secretly provided Nora with Money. Disliked by Torvald due to fraudulent past. Loses
job at the bank. Seeks to blackmail Nora.
,
,LOVE
ROMANTIC
Rossetti – Whilst ‘A Birthday’ and ITRT suggest possibility of love, overall love is fleeting and
painful, emphasises its instability and transience, should focus more on love of God.
SOEUR LOUISE DE LA MISERICORDE – transience of passion
• ‘Now the days are over of desire / Now dust and dying embers mock my fire’
• ‘Longing and love, pangs of perished pleasure / Longing and love, a disenkindled fire /
And memory a bottomless gulf of mire / And love a fount of tears outrunning measure’
SHUT OUT – loss and longing
• ‘It had been mine, and it was lost’
TWICE – betrayed by romantic love, found constancy in God’s love
• ‘You took my heart in your hand’
• ‘As you set it down it broke, / Broke, but I did not wince’
• ‘My hope was written on sand’ (LINK -> Nora thinking everything will be ok)
CONTEXT: Rossetti had several relationships which progressed towards engagement. Difficulty
of choosing between earthly romantic love and heavenly love, which evidently, she had to do
twice -> led her to great soul-searching and heartbreak.
• Late teens -> engaged to James Collinson, a painter in the pre-Raphaelite movement,
but broke off engagement when he became catholic in 1850
o SHUT OUT - > suggested it was written as a response to the ending of Rossetti’s
engagement with Collinson. As crump shows in her notes, an earlier edition of
the poem had the subtitle “What happened to me”.
o Following this train of thought Sawtell has interpreted the spirit to either be
Frances and Maria, who did not approve of the relationship, or God splitting up
the couple because of Collinson’s decision to go back to Catholic church)
• Charles Cayley -> rejected his proposal as he couldn’t share her Anglican faith with her
-> remained very close friends until his death, when he left her all his
manuscripts (he was a noted linguist)
-> her brother William said ‘Although she would not be his wife no
woman ever loved a man more deeply or constantly’
• John Brett -> refused him as well
• Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s poem ‘A man’s requirements’ -> male speacher puts
stringent requirements on how a women should love him, ends by saying ‘Thus if thous
wilt prove me, Dear, / Woman’s love no fable. / I will love thee – half a year - / As a man is
able.’ October 1846
, CRITICS:
D. Amico
➔ Rossetti did not see much difference between the woman who sells herself in marriage,
who doesn't marry for genuine love, and the woman has sexual experience before
marriage because she is fooled by the promises of human love. Both are guilty of placing
things on earth before God.
Harrison
➔ ‘Such is the case in all of Christina Rossetti’s poems whose focus is not on the
possibility of fulfilling earthly love, or upon betrayal in love, but rather upon the
apparently inevitable culmination of all compulsive amatory passions -renunciation.
Webster about a birthday
➔ ‘consider if there is an autobiographical element in the poem, as it may recall the happy
time when one of her suitors first declared his love.’
Ibsen- Also showcases love as an illusion, illusory though because of social norms and gender
expectations inhibiting true connection -> showcases tragic consequences + tendency to
obscure reality, places more importance on self-love after Nora’s awakening. Question of
identity -> how can you love someone truly if you only love the performative version of their
identity
• ‘I did it for love, didn’t I’
• ‘Once upon a time he’d have done anything for my sake’ Christine
• ‘You see, Torvalds so hopelessly in love with me that he wants me all to himself’
• ‘You know how much Torvald loves me -he’d never hesitate for an instant to lay down his
life for me’
• ‘This is the first time you and I, man and wife, have ever had a serious talk together’
• 'It's your fault I have done nothing with my life'
CONTEXT:
• 18 -> affair with servant girl Else Jensdatter, who became pregnant, working as an
apprentice to a pharmacist in Grimstad he was already badly paid (couldn’t afford
underclothes, socks or food) and then had to pay support payments for 14 years.
Probably never met their son Hands Jacob Henriksen.
• 1878 -> Ibsen received a letter from a friend, Laura Kieler.
o Summer 1871 -> She had visited Dresden and met Ibsen, who called her his
‘skylark’
o Like Torvald Hemler, Kieler’s husband had been seriously ill with tuberculosis,
leading her to contract secret debts for a southern holiday.
o She asked Ibsen’s help in publishing her new novel, Ultima Thule, to meet the
payments. Ibsen refused -> saying it was poorly written and encouraged her to
tell her husband about the debt
