1. HOW DOES ROSSETTI USE HER POETRY TO CHALLENGE CONVENTIONAL VIEWS?
A Triad
During the Victorian period, women had few choices in life. Christina Rossetti explores the choices available to women in her poem, 'A Triad'.
*Removed from her published works as deemed too controversial*

2. Triad: A union of group of three

3. A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

4. Within set boundaries or limits
A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.
Sonnet about the delimited* and/or polarised existence of women in the 19th century:
Within set boundaries or limits

5. The octave presents us with the three choices of roles for women in the Victorian period. First, there is the sexualised woman: "... one with lips Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips" The image of redness in the words, "Crimson," "glow," and "Flushed" make this a very sensual image representing a sexually active woman in her prime. To be sexually active in the Victorian period, a woman must be married, if not married then she is seen as a whore since women were not allowed/expected to have a sexuality.
A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

6. Hyacinth symbolise sincerity - yet this one is tinted…??
A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.
The second woman is in stark contrast with the colour red mentioned earlier. In other words, the role of the woman, who "Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth", is to be an image-to-be-looked at, an object of beauty to be admired. She is meant only for "show." This image is the ideal to which unmarried Victorian women had to aspire.
Hyacinth symbolise sincerity - yet this one is tinted…??

7. A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.
Finally, the third role for women is to be married: "And one was blue with famine after love, Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low The burden of what those were singing of." Here we have a woman who had once been loved - she married - but now she is starved of love and affection. Like the virginal spinster, she has no passion in her life. Her life is "blue" with cold and emptiness. ...read more.

8. What is the fate of the three women?
A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.
What is the fate of the three women?
How does Rossetti contradict the conventional Victorian perception of marriage?

9. It is unclear which of the two women "Took death for love, and won him after strife," or which one of the women "droned in sweetness like a fattened bee.". To an extent it doesn’t matter. The way the sonnet interweaves all three women together, suggests that they are united in their misery. They are all "on the threshold" of life and they should be facing a profusion of opportunities, however, no matter what role a woman chooses in 19th century Britain, she is "all short of life." In other words, she faces an empty future with no love, no hope and only abject misery.
A Triad
Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

10. WHAT POEMS COULD WE LINK THIS TO?
GOBLIN MARKET
A DUAGHTER OF EVE
AN APPLE GATHERING