Beyond the Verse - Faith and Femininity in Christina Rossetti's 'Remember'

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Maiya and Joe focus on Christina Rossetti’s ‘Remember,’ one of the most enduring sonnets of the Victorian period.After Maiya’s reading, they look at Rossetti’s background: her Italian literary family, her early breakdown at fourteen, her deep commitment to Anglo-Catholic faith, and her choice to remain unmarried despite several proposals. These details help frame the intensity and restraint within her poetry.The hosts examine the poem’s Petrarchan sonnet form, with its octave demanding remembrance and its sestet softening into acceptance. They discuss how the volta shifts the tone from insistence to selflessness, where the speaker prioritizes her loved one’s peace over her own memory.Rossetti’s use of euphemistic language for death—“the silent land,” “gone away”—is considered in relation to Victorian ideals, religious imagery, and comparisons with other poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Dylan Thomas. They also consider whether the addressee might be her former fiancé, a family member, or a more universal figure, and how the act of remembrance can be both intimate and impersonal.The episode closes by reflecting on how ‘Remember’ balances personal grief with broader cultural expectations of Victorian womanhood, showing both conformity and quiet resistance. Rossetti’s restraint becomes a kind of power, allowing her to leave a lasting legacy through poetry.Get exclusive PDFs on Christina Rossetti and her poetry, available to Poetry+ users:‘Remember’ PDFs:Full PDF GuidesPoetry Snapshot PDFsPoem Printable PDFsWith Meter & SyllablesWith Rhyme SchemeWith Both Meter and RhymeChristina Rossetti PDF GuideSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Remember me when I am gone away, gone far away into the silent land, when you can no more hold me by the hand, nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day you tell me of our future that you planned. Only remember me, you understand it will be late to counsel there. or pray, yet if you should forget me for a while, and afterwards remember, do not grieve. For if the darkness and corruption leave a vestige of the thoughts that once I had, better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad. Welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by the team at Permanalysis.com and Poetry Plus.

I'm Joe, and I'm here with my co-host, Meyer, who's just wonderfully read today's poem, Remember by the great Victorian poet Christina Rossetti. We're going to be discussing a range of themes related to the poem today, including memory, mortality and Victorian ideals. But before we get into the poem itself, Maya, you just read the poem really wonderfully for our readers. I'm sure they have a really vivid sense of the language of this poem. But can we zoom out slightly? Christina Rossetti, what can you tell us about her life, the key dates that relate to her biography? Absolutely.

Well, thanks, Joe. So Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 in London. an Italian poet, patriot, patriot father, Gabrielle Rossetti, and a mother Francis Polidori. They come from this lovely family. She has three older siblings. They are all very well educated in the art. And actually, Joe and I were talking before this podcast, they all are involved in some way, shape or form in the arts, their literary critics, their poets, their painters. So she comes from this very rich literary family, I would say. She had quite a complicated life At 14, she had a breakdown whilst she was at school.

This resulted in her kind of transition into a very, very devout Anglo-Catholic faith. This followed kind of her whole life. And actually, she was engaged in 1848, but broke it off due to those religious differences. And this is a theme we see carried out. She was proposed to many, many times throughout her life and consistently rejected those suitors. She was very successful in terms of the literary scene at the time throughout the 50s and 60s. was publishing a few poems in and around the 1850s, but it was in 1862 when her debut collection, Goblin Market and other poems came out, which is where remember the poem we're

discussing today, comes from. She actually lived quite a long life. She lived until she was 64, which, by all standards in the Victorian era, was pretty successful. She kind of had a few illnesses throughout her life she was diagnosed with Graves disease and cancer and died in 1894. But, you know, she has lived over this kind of huge period of change throughout Victorian England and her poem today that we're talking about is one that is very, very well known. So Joe, tell us a little bit more about this poem and kind of where it comes from. Thanks, Mark. That was really, really helpful. So the dates here are really crucial. So the poem was written in 1849. So first of all, let's remember that Christina was a very young writer at the time, 18, possibly

19, but still a teenager, still very, very young. And yet, as Maya mentioned, already quite a few significant events have taken place in her life. Most recently, of course, she had become engaged and broken off that engagement the year before she writes this poem and I'd love to talk later on when we get into it about who the addressee of this poem may well be and I think that that figure of the former fiancé looms large but to go back a few more years to that year that she had her breakdown when she was 14 years old

so this poem is written just four or five years later and that breakdown is really really significant it kind of either causes or coincides with as Maya mentioned her conversion to Anglo Catholicism which is a theme we'll return to later on in the episode But in terms of the poem itself, as some of our more regular listeners might have noticed, it takes a form of a Petrarchan sonnet. I don't worry if you didn't notice that. We'll talk about that later on. But it's a short 14-line poem that basically the clue isn't the title. It's a poem related to memory related to whether or not the speaker wishes to be in how they wish to be remembered after they die. So again, a slightly strange topic perhaps for a 19-year-old poet to be writing. The poem is very much writing into an imagined future when the speaker has passed away.

Maya and I were talking before the episode about how there's a lovely kind of shift and a volta, as we'll talk about later on, which is typical of the Petrarchan sonnet, because the first eight lines, the octave of this poem are quite insistence. They're quite direct and they're kind of, it's a call to be remembered. I would like to be remembered in this way. However, in the final six lines, the Sestet, the speaker becomes a lot more meek, a lot more willing to accept the possibility they may not be remembered. And crucially, there is a desire to permiss that they are willing to accept the fact that they, if they are not remembered, then it's okay. It's a kind of way of assuaging the guilt of her loved ones, whether it's a former fiancé, family members, we're not exactly sure. But that's kind of the poem in broad outline. But Maya, in terms of a deep dive, where would you like to begin? Well, as you say, any regular listeners will know I love to start with a title. And because this is a one word instructive title is the speaker telling any reader, any listener to remember. It's so important to focus on that as an instructive word because actually throughout the poem the meaning does change. And that's what I'd really like to focus on. You know, we're very lucky that this poem

is out of copyright so we can talk about the whole poem and use all the lines. But remember is the first word of this poem. It's immediately entering into a landscape with the communion between the speaker and the listener that are being told what to do. You're being told to remember. And actually it's such a lovely idea because of course, once you are gone, you don't have control over the people that remember you. You don't have control over who sits there and thinks of you. And that's the realization that we get as we move through this poem. So remember starts something that is very instructive. As we move through the lines of the poem, it starts to become something a little bit softer. And that again adds to this sense that the speaker becomes a little bit more meek,

a little bit more mild and kind of appreciates, you know, if you don't remember me, it's also okay because you have to move on with your life. And it's a really mature lens. I think, especially if we consider that the speaker might be as young as the writer is. And of course, this is probably going to be a very interesting conversation throughout this podcast episode, Joe, is so often we view poems as autobiographical. But with this poem, we're never quite sure if it is or not, because we have this very rich literary family and an investment in kind of poetic forms. So this sonnet very well could be written from the perspective of someone else.

It could be about someone we have no idea who she's talking. talking about. It could be about a family member, a loved one. It could not be her voice specifically. And I like that Rossetti kind of plays with that sense of memory because, of course, remember, only has an instruction so far as you know who is telling you to do that thing. And that's something that I think weakens as we go throughout this poem. And I wonder if that's maybe intentional. Yeah, I mean, it's a really, really interesting title. And all of our regular subscribers, I know that like Meyer, I have a bit of an obsession with poetic titles. And this is such an interesting one because ostensibly it's very direct. It's very simple. And yet the complexity kind of reveals itself the longer you think about it.

Because as Meyer mentioned, there was a question of autobiography in this time. There's a question of whether or not the speaker can be mapped on to Rosetti's own life. And we'll talk whether or not the addressee later on might be a kind of a shadowy figure that maybe resembles this former fiancé of Rosetti's. but that word remember, I think, serves to both universalize the poem, to depersonalize it, and yet also conversely creates a sense of intimacy. And I'll explain why, first and foremost, the act of remembrance, the act of memory, the act of thinking about our past is a universal act.

It's something that everybody does. Everybody has nostalgia, everybody has regret, everybody thinks about the past. So on the one hand, the title is incredibly universalizing. Create a sense that any single person could read the poem and reflect upon the way that they themselves would like to be remembered. Okay? So on the one hand, it kind of abstracts and takes us further away from any specific figure. And yet what you then have is a sense that the intimacy fills in the gap. Because if you are speaking to somebody that you know, somebody that you love, somebody that you have a history with, and you are telling them to remember, they have the

context. They will know what it is, what memory you're calling to mind. They will have a sense of the moment they fell in love, the moment they fell out of love, the moment they said something they regretted, the moment that they got engaged, the moment that they got divorced, whatever it is. And I think the act of saying the word alone can in fact serve to create a sense of intimacy in the poem. Because if the specific addressee was reading that title, knowing it was coming from Christina Rossetti or, let's say, a different poet who wrote it, they would know what they were being told to remember. They would know it was not merely a general act of remembrance. They would know that something specific was being called to mind. So I really, really enjoy that kind of duality

of the title. The other thing I really like about it is it focuses on memory as an act, not memory as an ideal. So the title could have been called memory. And yet it is not. It is the verb, remember. There isn't a way in which Rosetti is reminding the readers that memory is not something that exists outside of our ability. Memory is only something that happens when we act in a certain way. And what it does is it create a sense of agency in the addressee. We think of memory as being fixed. Things happen. We can't change them. But the act of remembering them positively, regularly, irregularly, changes the act itself. So what I love about the title is in a poem that, as we're going to explore, in which the speaker is largely abdicating their agency

and kind of giving up their control over their own legacy to other people, there is a sense that she is not destroying her agency, but merely handing it to somebody else, but the agency nevertheless exists. Does that make sense? It does. It does. And oddly enough, on most points, I think I would agree with you. But the one thing that, kind of as you were talking then, that came to mind was that, as you were saying, you know, memory is an act, remembering is an act. And yet we write things down. We record them so that we don't forget. It takes away the necessity of you having to recall those memories to mind. And actually by writing this poem, part of me thinks she's maybe not negating that agency to create memory and put the pressure

on the partner or the family member to sit and have to carry those memories. But instead, she's writing her own allowance in a strange sort of way. She's allowing them to forget her because as she's gone through the poem, she's actually made that realisation. I think when I first looked at this poem, and I know it's quite a popular opinion with the poem as well, that that kind of voltaire later in the poem

is her becoming, I guess, less concerned about her own position in memory, her own position in history or her own legacy. But actually, it may be the case to say that as she was writing this poem, she kind of realizes that her own position is less important because she gets the opportunity to write it. She has the ability to publish and to write and to create her own history. So here, where she talks of the future that the other person has planned,

she gets to write the present as it is in this exact moment. She gets to write a new future. And the future that she writes is one where that person is happy without her. And I think that's quite a lovely thought, really. it becomes, you know, as we say, very soft. But I don't necessarily know if that translates to her being weak in a sense. But I might be completely off piece there. What do you think?

I think you're absolutely on to something there. And I think actually it strikes at one of the kind of core tensions of Rosetti's career. And we're going to talk later on about to what extent this poem kind of subscribes to Victorian idealized womanhood, particularly. And that links to this question as well because, you know, Rosetti is a unmarried woman who makes her own money. I mean, that is a very unusual thing for a very unusual thing. Victorian woman, and yet many of her poems sort of align themselves with Victorian idealized visions of womanhood. So there is this tension between the reality of her life and the world she portrays in her poetry. And we see that here as well, because I've just mentioned, and as this

poem explores, there is a sense of acknowledging the fact that one's legacy is always continued by others, people who come after you, the way they remember you, how much they decide to think of you and kind of enshrine your memory and your legacy. That is. the case for the majority of us. Writers and artists are some of the few people who actually get to speak to subsequent audiences directly because the art persists. So there is a really odd tension there between, on the one hand, the poem is kind of slightly giving over responsibility for remembering this speaker to others, to those loved ones. And yet the very act of writing the poem means that you have a direct line of communication between yourself and subsequent generations. You almost can

bypass your loved ones. It's not as important how they choose to remember you, because you can speak directly to the future in a way that very few kind of civilians can, if you will. And there's a lovely tension there between this abdication on the one hand of agency while writing that abdication of agency is in itself reclaiming it. For sure. It's a really strange balance, I think, between certainty and uncertainty there too. And one of the things that always stands out to me in this poem is the way that death is described is quite euphemistic. It's very gentle and it's very unsure. You know, I'll just pick up a few phrases within the poem, such as the silent land and gone away.

These are very, very light touch ways of describing what death is. And when you have the certainty of memory as contrasted against the uncertainty of death, there really is a distance that's created between the speaker and this proposed future for her. And I really love the way that that kind of creates this very ephemeral atmosphere around this poem. it feels very grand in many ways. And I know that it's one poem that is consistently read at funerals, for example, because the language is so beautiful and so simple. And yet there is something very magical about the way that death is described,

because in many ways it's quite abstracted, this impression of being gone into a silent land. She repurposes the piece that is suggested by her departure and offers herself a kind of solace outside of what this marriage or what this partnership is. And I find that a really unique proposition, especially for a Victorian woman at the time. And someone who, you know, as I'm sure we'll go on to discuss, lived quite reclusively, you know, as she was publishing her poems. And as I said in the intro, she was rejecting proposals left, right and centre.

She lived a relatively solitary life in terms of something outside of her family. So I really love this impression that she's been able to create her own peace and come two terms with the fact that if her loved ones do move on with that, her, that is also okay. And it's a really, you know, as I said earlier, it's a very mature perspective for someone who was so young when they were writing this. I wouldn't be surprised looking back at poems that I wrote or poems that we've spoken about on the podcast, like do not go gentle into that good night, that they absolutely rage against this idea of death. And yet here, death is purpose to something that is much more abstract, much more ephemeral and actually is a really beautiful moment to come to terms with your own sense of self. And she's just

wonderful at creating that piece, I find. I think you're absolutely right. And I think the Dylan Thomas comparison is an excellent one. And if any listeners haven't checked the episode out, we did that. I think in season two was a really interesting conversation about that poem. So feel free to go and check that one out after this episode. But I think we have to at this point refocus in on the religious element. And obviously, the reference to the Silent Lands is a kind of an obscure biblical reference.

There's an allusion to some extracts from Isaiah. There's an allusion to Psalms. but it's not a declarative way of describing heaven as a kind of appears. I think deliberately murky example. You know, in some cases in the Bible, it's a physical place to the West. In other places in the Bible, it's regarded as a kind of abstract moment in time between death and resurrection. But it's not the most obvious allusion to heaven. She certainly could have chosen more.

And it's not that she didn't know them. As we mentioned, she was very devout. If she'd wanted to make a more direct allusion to heaven, she could have done. Now, nevertheless, it is definitely a kind of framing of the poem in religious context. By the end of the second line, we understand where everybody is here. This is not a physical journey she has taken on Earth that has separated her from the Addressy. It is a spiritual journey. She has passed away in this kind of imagined future. And she is imploring the loved one, and we'll talk about who that is the moment, to remember

her as she was in life. I mean, there's so much going on here that I'd like to explore. I'm interested in my, I'd love to get your thought on this. The title of the poem as we've mentioned is simply that word remember. And yet the poem begins, remember me. And I'm so curious as to why the me has been kind of removed from that title. Because I think in many ways, given the only thing or figure in the poem that is being called to remember is the speaker, it would almost make more sense for the title to be, Remember Me. Why do you think Rosetti has withdrawn that word? Why leave the word remember alone in the title? That's such a good question. And I'd actually not considered why she would have taken it away, but I must admit, what I think

stands out to me is the latter part of this poem, post-Volter, let's say. Because I think what she's actually trying to say is to recall the memories that made the other person happy. And those aren't necessarily, yes, they're, you know, associated with that one person. But I guess the sum of the parts is much greater than the individual. So I think by taking the me away, it's a bit more selfless. She's allowing that person to retain those positive memories to remember the good times and yet not cling on to the slightly more negative implications of remembering a person because of course grief is absolutely all-consuming and remembering someone will come with pain if you've lost that person. There's so many romance stories and novels

that have been written about the fact that if you hold onto someone for so long you can never let them go. It doesn't allow you to move on. So I think she has through both metaphor and quite literally removed herself from the equation. She has left nothing but those memories. I think that's why she's taken the me out of it. It's quite a literal removal of self, a very selfless act, because there's something very, very beautiful about allowing your person, your love, your family to move on without you. It's an incredibly hard decision to make, especially when we are talking about a speaker who was kind of already passed off of the earthly plane. You know, you have no control anymore and of course you'd want your loved ones to cling on to you but perhaps you also need

that freedom and this language of the silent land the hand holding and being able to let go reminds me of the myth of orpheus and eurydice because of course we have this kind of journey that is being taken through a spiritual realm and actually the question is asked is it better to hold on and cling on to that grief or is it better to let go and simply move on with life And it's a really wonderful way of decentralising the central speaker, I find. I was a really, really fascinating comparison. I hadn't thought about the myth of Orpheus, but I think it really works nicely. I'm so glad you mentioned that word selflessness or selfless in that explanation,

because I think that's really at the crux of what's going on in this poem. And there's a couple of key details I'd like to focus in on. And as you mentioned, especially as the poem draws towards its conclusion, the kind of main wish being expressed here is that while the speaker would like to be remembered, They don't want to be remembered if it causes their loved ones pain. If it's a choice between her memory assisting in the world or her loved ones living, an existence devoid of pain, devoid of painful memories, she would rather the latter. She would rather spare her loved ones.

And it's an incredibly selfless act. And I wonder whether we can view the poem in the context of those Victorian ideals that I mentioned at the top of the episode because so much of our perception of the Victorian era is centered around kind of masculine figures. I mean, so many of the novels of this era are around the solitary, masculine figures who have to be austere and patriotic and reserved. And we've taught in previous episodes, I think, and certainly it's very much in kind of the public conversation around how there is kind of a dark undercurrent to the Victorian male image that actually there is a sordid underbelly to these respectable Victorian gentlemen. But this perm, of course, is very much interested in the idea of the Victorian woman. And it really is worth pointing out the dates again here. So Rosetti was born in 1830, Victoria takes the throne just seven years later.

So Rosetti would have had a handful of memories before Queen Victoria took the throne, and Queen Victoria continued to reign for seven years after Rosetti's death. So Rosetti knew virtually nothing except the reign of Queen Victoria in which Britain was kind of the global superpower and British supremacy abroad was largely unchallenged. Now, the image of the Victorian woman in this moment in time is a fascinating one, because obviously there are expectations around being reserved as well, like their male counterparts, but there is obviously a key emphasis place on domesticity, being in the home, raising the family, and imparting good Victorian values around respect and reservedness, as I've mentioned.

I mean, it's not a coincidence that earnest is such a popular name in the Victorian era. There was a sense that there be a good Victorian, you had to be religious, you had to be earnest. But there's two kind of comparison points I think are important here. And one is a real Victorian contextual point and one is a religious point. As we mentioned, the poem is written in 1849, but not published until 1862. And there is a key thing that happens between those dates that I think shapes the way that this poem goes on to be read and interpreted. And that is the Crimean War, in particular, the figure in the Crimean War of Florence Nightingale. You have the kind of archetypal image of what a Victorian woman could be, utterly selfless, only ever really concerned with the lives of others, never thinking of herself.

This is the image that we have conjured of Florence Nightingale in our minds. And I think it's really interesting that this poem is obviously written before Florence Nightingale ever goes to the Crimean War. And yet we can see those parallels with that archetypal figure so clearly resonating in the poem, which, as I mentioned, would never been read by the public until after Florence Nightingale came to prominence. So that's an interesting comparison. And again, of course, we talk about Florence Nightingale so often in popular culture

as being a kind of pseudo-religious figure, as almost being an incarnation. of an angel of some kind. And that brings me to the other point, which is the religious point, because I think when we have a poem like this, it is a female narrative voice that is expressing complete selflessness. We have to go back to religion, and we have to go back in particular, to the figure of Mary, the mother of Christ. And I think this is a really subtle thing that perhaps certain readers might not have picked up on because Britain at the time in a Victorian England was an Anglican country, a Protestant country. But as Maya mentioned earlier on, Rosetti and her mother and her sister had a much greater interest

had converted to the Anglo-Catholic faith. And Catholicism to this day places a much greater emphasis on the figure of Mary, the selfless mother figure, who thinks only of her son and thinks only of the pain experienced by him rather than the pain that she undergoes.

And again, that sense of a figure who is willing to abdicate, she doesn't choose to bear the son of God. It is something that is forced upon her and yet she accepts it. And that vision of what, what femininity can be is something that is ultimately willing to acquiesce to forces beyond your control. And again, that's not particularly a modern mindset that we hold, and rightly so. But I think

those two influences, one may well have influenced the writing of this poem, which is the Catholic figure of Mary, but one, I think, really shapes the perception of the poem once it's published because the Victorian readership would have been so familiar with by that point in 1862, the iconic figure of Florence Nightingale. I hadn't even considered kind of Florence Nightingale's role in that. I think that's such an excellent point, Joe, and so well put. It's a fascinating way to interpolate that angelic figure, and it really sits at odds, I think, to some of the language that's used in this poem,

which is the darkness and corruption that sort of sneaks its way in at the end. But what we're actually exploring here is the banishment of that. And I love the idea that the replication of those sort of Victorian female values, what a woman should be in the home and in her marriage reflects the banishment of those kind of corruptive elements. The fact that being good and pure and angelic and representing those more positive emotions and allowing yourself to be a conduit for those more heavenly attributes

is what will banish away the bad. And that's what I think sneaks in at the end. And you're absolutely right. I think it can be very easily missed in this poem because of how simple the language is. When you really focus in on those kind of biblical phrasings, it becomes so evident. I just, as you were speaking there,

and I was thinking about this myth of Borphius, and I just had to jump forward actually to some of my favourite lines in the poem. So let me just read these again. Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day you tell me of our future that you planned. Now, I want to jump to these lines for several reasons,

But the first thing is when you were talking about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydus, that line, nor I half turned to go yet turning stay, really came to mind because for anyone he's not aware, in the myth of Orpheus, he is able to lead Eurydus, who has died out of the underworld through the magic of his musical ability, so long as he doesn't look around. If he gets all the way to Earth and doesn't look back at her following behind him, she can be reborn. And at the very last moment, of course, in classic kind of Greek mythological fashion, he turns and she vanishes. So that sense of the figure in this poem turning yet not turning as a kind of

hesitation I think is perhaps an allusion to that poem. So I'm so glad you mentioned it because I'm not sure I would have made that connection otherwise. But the other thing I really like about that is, again, it kind of encapsulates something about the tension I mentioned about Rosetti as a radical figure and yet as a very conservative one. Because on the one hand, there's so much of her biography in her life that feels strikingly radical. And, you know, a woman who makes her own money, who doesn't Mary, who's surrounded by artistic figures, you know, her brother Dante, Gabrielle Rosetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were a very subversive literary and artistic group and she was involved with that to an extent and there's so much about her life that feels radical

and in many ways feminist critics of the late 20th century who were really important in re-evaluating her work probably looks to stress some of those radical elements and yet there was also something about her as a conservative figure, deeply religious, deeply devout, writes a lot about archetypal femininity in the Victorian era without ever really rattling the cage of what that means. And I think this line brilliantly encapsulates that, because if we think about what this means to turn, we get that word twice in that line, turn and then turning, we almost have that image of the revolution of a wheel. And what I love about that is that image of a revolving wheel and that word revolution in itself has opposite meanings. On the one hand, a revolution is to

continue doing the same thing and to not buck the trend and to not cause a stir and yet of course the other meaning of revolution is the exact opposite of that to rip up the rule book to start again to break structures and I love the way that line kind of flirts with both of those realities and so much of Rosetti's career I think is treading that line between whether or not she wants to be a radical or whether or not actually she is happy with the status quo as it is. I think that's such an excellent point and actually just to add to that I think there is actually a very slight rejection of this male planned future here as well because of course, the lines you mentioned, remember me when no more day by day, you tell me of our

future that you'd planned. There was no self-insertion in that future planning. It was the partner specifically that was telling her what was going to happen. And yet we have a rejection of that because of course, in the line prior to this, we understand that she has made the decision to not turn or to turn. She has given agency here. And of course, contrasting the agency that she gets either to half turn but to go by turning stay, set against the rejection of the planned future and also, you know, within the environment of the poem, which is, of course, an imagined future outside of the earthly realm. I think it's such a fantastic way to kind of recall a little bit of power. Obviously, I completely appreciate that, you know, writing a slightly revolutionary

poem within the parameters of what she can at the time. But I can absolutely see why feminist critics come back to this poem and kind of start to pull out the slightly finer threads of what could be early feminist theory here, because absolutely we have core female values in the Victorian era represented here. But those small corruptions of that, I think, are just early seeds of dissatisfaction. And as you say, she spent a whole life rejecting the comfort that a suitor could bring, a safe and comfortable marriage. that was expected for someone of her era and to actually be a woman in that era

and have that choice is a rare and wonderful thing. I'm so glad you struck upon that line is my favourite line in the poem. And you're so right that the kind of the kernels of something much more radical are present there, even if actually the rest of the poem doesn't follow through on that line.

But you tell me of our future that you planned. I mean, there's something obviously, and I appreciate the irony of man and the woman on the podcast, cast and the man is the one saying this line, but there is something so mansplainy about that. There is an acknowledgement, oh, you tell me of our future, the idea of future that the speaker has part ownership of it, it's ours, but no influence over the shape of it, the way it looks, the way it's going to appear, no influence.

I mean, I guess there's also a question there of, you know, I completely agree, very mansplaney, which is a literary term, of course. But there may also be that question of the only method of escape here in this poem is that She has to die to escape that proposed future. The imagined future that she has is one outside of the trappings of that marriage. And I'm using marriage here because I think it becomes increasingly evident throughout the poem that this is meant to be a partnership. However, is that a resistance to the planned future? Or is that naturally her kind of falling into line and saying, well, as a living woman, this is the expectation that is put upon me.

And my only escape would be through death. I think it's a really troubling kind of undercurrent throughout this poem. And it's a question that I actually, I'm not sure I know the answer to. I mean, you're absolutely right. Another literary term. The kind of rom-com version of this poem, if you will, would see her rejecting her mansplady partner and then going to marry the person she does really love.

It's worth noting, of course, that doesn't happen in Rosetti's life. Of course, we don't know exactly if the speaker is meant to resemble Rosetti, and obviously Rosetti writing this at 19 could not have known that she would never marry. But there is a kind of a bitter sweet interpretation of that line, which on the one hand feels like a moment of the speaker becoming aware of their own power and their own ability to reject this man who has laid out her future for her, whether or not she likes it or not, which is a really empowering moment. But as Maia mentioned, rejection of one abject future does not mean that there is a better one necessarily or there is a romantic partner more suitable for Rosetti or the speaker. actually, as Maya says, and as Rosetti's life plays out, it was a series of rejecting lives that she doesn't want,

and maybe that's because she only ever wanted to be alone. We don't know. I mean, there is other poetry that suggests that she certainly was interested in romance over the course of her life, so we can imagine that perhaps on some level she was interested in finding a romantic partner, but that doesn't happen for her. There are things that are more important to her than a romantic partner, and there is an unwillingness to compromise on those things,

which feels, again, deeply modern in many respects, but there's something slightly narratively unfulfilling about that for a modern audience, I feel, because obviously we would want there to be somebody that can be a life partner for her in the way that she would have wanted. And one doesn't want to draw too many biographical comparisons, but one of the other poets that we discussed in this era, of course, is Elizabeth Barrett Browning. And it's such a contrast in that world because the relationship that she ends up having with her husband, Robert Browning, feels like one of those marriages in the Victorian era, a very rare thing where there is not a massive need to compromise on either part. they were willing to support one another artistically as well as in the home, as well as professionally, in other ways. And the absence of that figure, I think, is quite telling in this poem.

Well, yeah, I think the comparison between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti is a really interesting one because one of the kind of concerns that came to my mind before we started this podcast was, in many ways, a lot of the women writers from the Victorian era that we talk about do have these, you know, as you said earlier, revolutionary poems, even if they are in kind of small. smaller doses. But what I find really quite odd in a sense is that both of those poets were reclusive. We are told that they lived in their homes. They didn't venture out much. They were either sickly or just happened to exist in very small spaces in homes in countryside or in Rossetti's case in a house in London and she never really went out. So I guess the question, and I'd actually love to know what listeners or readers of Rossetti think is that to be a woman and to be successful, commercially successful in this time, was that all the almost a requirement. Did they have to not really be out and about and did they have to kind of

tow the line in order to have that commercial success? Because of course, it's hard to be controversial. If you're never out of the house, it's hard to be controversial if you're not running in kind of complex social circles. If you simply exist within the very fine parameters of a wealthy and supported life, I guess it makes it easier. But then also is that just, you know, is it just a kind of odd coincidence or is it something that perhaps was more intentional for both of them coming from an educated family background, having support, having wealth, having access to books and histories and mythologies has of course made their writing all the richer, but is it something that's also not benefited them because they haven't been able to step out into Victorian

society, perhaps in the way that we would expect other wives to do, other expectations that were laid on them to be a wife in this society. And yeah, I mean, it's a thought that kind of occurred to me and it's actually probably a pretty good opportunity to ask. As of this week, I believe, Poemanalysis.com has set up a community. So actually, Joe and I are both on there. You can talk to us directly. We will be posting stuff on there, asking questions to our lovely listeners. So what do you think?

Do you think this is a Rossetti at her best? Do you think she was a revolutionary? Do you think she was just a woman who happened to love art and write poetry? I'd absolutely love to know people's thoughts, especially given. That's all we have time for today, unfortunately. You're absolutely right, Meyer, and that community is a really, really great to see it get going. It's been in the works for a long time. I've really enjoyed the interactions I've already had on there with listeners and poetry lovers. So do get on there

and do tell us what you think. And just on that last point, Maya, you were making about the kind of acceptable face of the female writer in the 19th century. Because it's not just, of course, in Victoria, England. I mean, we did the episode on Emily Dickinson, who obviously is a contemporary. And again, that sense of being a recluse. And I'm thinking of other writers of this era, you know, the Bronte sisters and the idea that Emily Bronte in particular could write something as unbelievably radical and brilliant as Wuthering Heights. And in the preface to that book, her sister Charlotte could effectively write an apology for the book. There is an acceptable level of radicalism, but there is also a line that should not be crossed for female writers.

And I'm thinking the century in terms of literary figures, I think, is kind of bookended by the likes of Byron at the beginning of the century and someone like Oscar Wilde at the end of the century. Not necessarily saying they were the greatest writers of their time, but certainly they were among the most famous. And it's hard to picture how a female writer could have behaved in the way that they did. I mean, Lord Byron famously described as mad, bad and dangerous to know. And of course, Oscar Wilde at the end of the century with all of his eccentricities and all of his very exaggerated public persona. It's hard to picture a female writer being able to in that era be that way in public and yet remain commercially successful. It would, of course, too much outrage. So I think it's interesting to see

radicalism that takes root in the work first before the public persona can kind of catch up. It's a really curious one. And of course, you know, the 19th century in many ways is the century in which the birth of modern celebrity occurred, those early celebrities, Byron, as I've mentioned, Oscar Wilde and others. And it's interesting to see how some of those tropes around the way that male celebrities are allowed to behave compared to female celebrities continue right up to the present day. I mean, the hypocrisy of our current media and the way we portray male and female celebrities, I think is very much apparent. But as Maher mentioned, if you have any thoughts on that or any of the things we've discussed in this episode, we want to hear them on the

community pages. I mean, we've got brilliant stuff already there. There's forums, a book recommendations, home discussions. You can suggest more episodes of Beyond the Verse. You can tell us which episodes you've enjoyed the most. We can't wait to see you there. But unfortunately, that is all we have time for today. But Maya, can you tell us what we're talking about in next week's episode? I am very excited for next week's episode. It's going to be a slightly different sort of episode for us. We will be talking about the ode form in its entirety, but I promise it's not going to be a three hour long episode. We will try and keep it nice and condensed for you all. But as Joe says, that's all we have time for today. So for now, it's goodbye from me.

And goodbye from me and the whole team at Permanalysis.com and Poetry Plus. See you next time. Thank you.