Christina Rossetti Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Littell's Living Age

Critical Essay by Littell's Living Age

SOURCE: "Miss Rossetti's Poems," in Littell's Living Age, Vol. XC, No. 20, August 18, 1866, pp. 441-42.

In the following review of Rossetti's poems collected in the volume The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, the critic praises Rossetti 's unaffected style.

If an illustration of the unsatisfactoriness of Robertson's definition of poetry—"the natural language of excited feeling"—were necessary, it could be found nowhere better than in the productions of Miss Rossetti. On the other hand, however, the definition, when applied to the volume now before us, contains a kind of half truth, for Miss Rossetti, though never excited, is always natural. It would be difficult to find a selection of poems so thoughtful and serious, yet so devoid of that frenzy which is often inseparably associated with the notion of true poetry—such as Miss Rossetti's really is. In all she writes there is a certain element of tranquillity and repose....
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