Christina Rossettis Poetry: Controlled and Passionate Essay -- Cousin

Christina Rossettis Poetry Controlled and PassionateRossettis poetry has been described as both controlled andpassionate. Making clear what you understand by the terms discusswhich of these two views you pass more sympathy with and why. Referclosely to at least three of the set poems.Christina Rossetti poetry uses concise structures but through theseshe expresses immense emotion in this respect her poetry canaccurately described as both controlled and passionate yet the twowords are almost a paradox as passion is frequently seen to be at oddswith controlled tight structures. Other poets have also followed inRossettis footsteps by combining tight organize poetic forms withemotion e.g. Dylan Thomas.L.E.L is a prime example of Rossettis technique it combines acomplex structure with a very emotive outcry. The structure is very slender with each verse not only rhyming within itself, in an A, B, A,B, C, C, C pattern, but also within pairs of stanzas containing apattern between them on t he 5th to 8th lines. The 2nd and fourth linesprovide visually rhyming lines throughout the poem connecting eachverse although when the poem is read aloud the lines do not rhymeverbally. Rossetti also plays with structures in the poem, beginningwith an elegiac stanza form (a Quatrain of four iambic pentametersrhyming A, B, A, B - Pears Cyclopaedia) before diversifying into herown variance ending with C, C, C. The elegiac stanza form helpscontribute to the passion by setting the tone for the poem while atthe same time Rossetti alters the form to go her needs showingcreativity within her control. The latter section of each stanza isin a different tone relating and contrasting the emot... ... with more brainiac inher earlier poetry, with later works settling into more conventionalforms. Thus it is difficult to decide which argument to have moresympathy with as both control and passion are constantly intertwinedand also changed as Rossetti grew older.Work CitedRossetti, Christina. Th e Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti. With Memoir and Notes &c. Ed. William Michael Rossetti. London New York Macmillan, 1904.Works ConsultedArmstrong, Isobel. A practice of medicine of Thine Own Womens Poetry. in Joseph Bristow, Victorian Women Poets. Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti. Basingstoke and London Macmillan Press Limited, 1995, 32-63.Harrison, Antony H. Christina Rossetti in Context. Brighton The Harvester Press, 1988.Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti. A Literary Biography. London and Sydney Pimlico, 1995.