Description:
The poetry of Christina Rossetti is often described as 'gothic' and yet this term has rarely been examined in the specific case of Rossetti's work. Based on new readings of the full range of her writings, from 'Goblin Market' to the devotional poems and prose works, this book explores Rossetti's use of Gothic forms and images to consider her as a Gothic writer. Christina Rossetti's Gothic analyses the poet's use of the grotesque and the spectral and the Christian roots and Pre-Raphaelite influences of Rossetti's deployment of Gothic tropes.
Brief description: Serena Trowbridge is Visiting Lecturer in English at Birmingham City University, UK.
Review Quotes:
"Critics often employ the term 'Gothic' in describing Rossetti's most famous poem-'Goblin Market'- yet Trowbridge's volume is the first systematic study of the influence of the Gothic mode on Rossett's poetry and prose. Coeditor with Ryan Barnett of Acts of Memory: The Victorians and Beyond (2010), Trowbridge (Brimingham City Univ., UK) does not argue that Rossetti's work is Gothic, But she maintains that it 'reflects the wider cultural influence of Gothic and mirrors, echoes, and transforms its identifiable modes and tropes.' Throwbridge devotes and early chapter the the influence of Charles Robert Maturini's novels on Rossetti's poetry. The author offers an extended and insightful reading of 'Goblin Market.' but she also focuses on work from throughout Rossetti's long career, including her prose devotional works. Trowbridge's most significant contribution is her argument that Rossett's conception of the Gothic in inextricably linked to her religious belief and that, in fact, the Gothic is a 'Christian-based mode of literature.' This volume is meticulously researched and engages effectively with the growing body of Rossetti scholarship while remaining accessible to nonspecialists." --R.D. Morrison, Morehead State University, CHOICE
"Trowbridge's book adds a tremendous amount simply in opening up the Gothic as an area of study for Rossetti. The connections she draws are persuasively established, clearly elaborated, and reframe not only Rossetti's works but their religious heritage. Built on excellent research into Rossetti's reading habits and inclinations from youth to maturity, as well as the aesthetic theories and critical attitudes that are likely to have influenced her writing, this study offers serious and fruitful engagements with a number of important works and figures from Rossetti's time to the present." -Heather McAlpine, University of the Fraser Valley, Journal of Victorian Culture