Passing strange: Christina Rossetti's unusual dead
A Jamison - Textual Practice, 2006 - Taylor & Francis
Textual Practice, 2006•Taylor & Francis
… Written in the first-person voice of confessional poetry, these texts reveal nothing about the
poet as person, relying rather on dead speakers about whom we know only that we (being
alive) cannot share their experience. Indeed, Christina Rossetti's poetics suggest that she
concurs with Poe about death's status as the most poetical topic in the world – although not,
perhaps, about why that would be the case.Footnote15 In relation to Poe's infamous comment
in ‘The Philosophy of Composition’ (1846), Elisabeth Bronfen identifies the moment of feminine …
poet as person, relying rather on dead speakers about whom we know only that we (being
alive) cannot share their experience. Indeed, Christina Rossetti's poetics suggest that she
concurs with Poe about death's status as the most poetical topic in the world – although not,
perhaps, about why that would be the case.Footnote15 In relation to Poe's infamous comment
in ‘The Philosophy of Composition’ (1846), Elisabeth Bronfen identifies the moment of feminine …
For all along the valley, down the rocky bed, Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree, The voice of the dead was a living voice to me. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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