Sara Teasdale Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Diane D’Amico

Critical Essay by Diane D’Amico

SOURCE: “Saintly Singer or Tanagra Figurine? Christina Rossetti Through the Eyes of Katharine Tynan and Sara Teasdale,” in Victorian Poetry, Vol. 32, Nos. 3-4, Autumn, 1994, pp. 387-407.

In the following excerpt, D’Amico determines the influence of Christina's Rossetti's work on Sara Teasdale.

Scholars have given little attention to the topic of Christina Rossetti's influence.¹ In fact, she has so often been presented as a Victorian recluse who resembled more the poets of the seventeenth century than those of her own period that one is led to infer she had few followers. However, an examination of family letters and diaries indicates that by the mid-1880s Rossetti occupied an important place in the literary community: aspiring poets often sent their first volumes to her, and numerous writers both American and British, wanting to meet the famous poet, came calling at 30 Torrington Square.² Although several male poets, for example Algernon Swinburne...
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