From The Antique Pre-Reading Context Learning Outcomes To understand how Rossetti can be viewed as a contradictory figure by exploring her attitudes towards gender questions. To understand how this is demonstrated in the poem “From the Antique”

The Status of Women During the second half of the nineteenth century, various campaigns attempted to persuade Parliament to give women the right to vote. Petitions, letters and texts were issued advocating the cause. The poet Augusta Webster wrote to Rossetti in the late 1870s asking for her support in a campaign she was involved with, which aimed to give women the right to vote. However, Rossetti refused. In her letter of response, she asked: “Does it not appear as if the Bible was based upon an understood unalterable distinction between men and women, their position, duties, privileges?”

In her mind, this ‘unalterable distinction' was made with Eve and continued throughout the Bible. To Rossetti, men and women were created by God as fundamentally different creatures. Because of their fundamental differences, Rossetti believed that men and women should have different responsibilities and rights. Social constraints Rossetti was acutely aware of the disadvantages faced by nineteenth century women and of the pressure society put on women to conform to expected standards. In her poem, The Lowest Room, she contrasts the weary life of a Victorian woman confined to working on some embroidery at home, with the active life of classical heroes. At one point, she has her speaker compare the life of a wife to the life of a slave. This comparison was commonplace among women writers for, in the nineteenth century, English law still withheld any legal status from married women.

Sexual double standards Many of Rossetti's early poems focus on the distinction often made by Victorian male writers between two sorts of women: the angelic maid or mother and the wicked temptress. In The Angel in the House, a poem written by Coventry Patmore, published in 1854 and revised up until 1862, the ideal woman is described as a charming and unselfish creature completely dedicated to her husband and children. Child-like and weak, she is seen as pure and in need of male protection. Her proper place is said to be the home. If a woman did not fit the prescribed pattern of the girl-like and innocent angel, she was often conceived of as being a dangerous threat. By combining confidence with fairness, many of Rossetti's poems challenge the sharp line that her male contemporaries drew between the pure woman and the seductress, to present a much more balanced picture of womanhood.

The fate of ‘fallen' women Rossetti was especially concerned with the welfare of women who sought to come out of prostitution. During the 1860's, she worked as a volunteer in a home for women deemed as ‘fallen' by Victorian society. Rossetti recognised that, according to the Christian principle of forgiveness, these women did not and should not be deemed outcasts for the rest of their lives. Instead, she sought to change commonplace and stereotyped assumptions. Throughout her poetry, she uses the figure of Mary Magdalene to highlight the fact that women who have once been prostitutes can undergo a complete change.

In a Nutshell At times Rossetti used the Biblical idea of woman’s subordination to man as reason for maintaining the status quo, while at others she argued for female representation in Parliament and spoke out against the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution.

The Pre-Raphaelites Influence of the Pre-Raphaelites The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of artists, poets, and critics who, during late Victorian England, admired and emulated late Medieval art. This type of art dates back to a time before the appearance of artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo. The original and most famous members of the Pre-Raphaelites were John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt. The Pre-Raphaelites sought a return to bright, rich colours and attention to detail, as well as a stress in a spiritual response to art and the importance of observing nature; all classic examples of late Medieval art.

In terms of literature, they created highly visual poetry, basing their techniques on those of the visual arts (great attention to colour and exact detail). They promote a greater emphasis on the legendary past. The Pre–Raphaelite Brotherhood did not believe that poetry should be overtly didactic (try to teach us), but that poetry could inspire in a moral way. Key artists of the period saw woman as art. In keeping with the old romantic tradition of observing women, it is fair to say that women tended to exist as images to be observed and as such they are symbols. Their symbolic status is then transformed into narrative via the artist who was often male. For Rossetti especially, it seems as if a woman's only story is her beauty as in most of his paintings his women are not doing anything active, they simply look beautiful.

Lady Lilith By Dante Gabriel Rossetti Mary Magdelene By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Christina Rossetti was barely eighteen when the Pre–Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded by her brothers and their art student friends. Quiet and extremely shy, she shrank from being publicly associated with their activities, but was nevertheless closely and intensely involved with the PRB, as observer and participant. Indeed, with historical hindsight she can be given the honorary title of ‘Pre– Raphaelite Sister’ by virtue both of her literal sisterhood and her contribution to PRB productions.

In an Artist’s Studio In her poem, "In an Artist's studio," Christina Rossetti responds to the tendency of Victorian poets to objectify women in their experiment with aestheticism. In the poem, the artist conceives of his female subject as a passive, emotionless object which he can mould to fit his own fantasies and projections. The description of the female subject is consistent with the stereotypical Victorian view of female patience, passivity and selflessness. The image of the artist "feeding" upon his subject's face refers to the male desire to possess women as wholly aesthetic objects. Their creation is not realistic – ie. What is really there, but what they imagine to be there.

In an Artist’s Studio One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel — every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more or less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. 1.How does Rossetti present the male character? 2.How does she present the female character? 3.How does her use of imagery suggest the objectification of women? 4.How does the poem reflect the Pre- Raphaelite movement?

Read “From The Antique” 1.How does stanza one suggest that life has no meaning for the character? 2.Why does the “she” have no name? Who do you think it is? 3.What are the connotations of the word “blank”? 4.What is the effect of the repetition in the poem? 5.How does stanza two convey a world with no people? 6.What are the connotations of the verb “Wag”? How does this poem reflect Rossetti as a “contradictory figure”?