Reorienting Christina Rossetti’s Christian Feminist Poetics in “The Convent Threshold” and “A Royal Princess”

Jia Yee, Faith Yeo, Sharifah Aishah Osman, Su Mei Kok

Abstract


Initially reduced to a display of sexual frustration by Postmodern critics, Christina Rossetti’s aesthetics of renunciation found a place among scholars in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first century as a praiseworthy representation of her spiritual strength and critique of patriarchal standards. Still, these scholars saw Rossetti’s renunciation as a passive, inward-looking virtue reflective of her own self-abnegating and reclusive way of life. This study revisits Rossetti’s aesthetics of renunciation to argue that Rossetti's use of female self-sacrifice is not meant to be read as passivity but as a powerful force that can liberate women from oppression by patriarchal forces and empower them. Additionally, this study uncovers how Rossetti conceived an active and heroic female self-sacrifice that not only exudes spirituality but also has emancipatory potential for women in the temporal life. This is done through the analysis of two understudied poems, "The Convent Threshold" (1862), which features a renunciatory fallen woman and "A Royal Princess" (1866), which features a Christlike martyr. The poems are analysed through the lens of feminist theology to foreground Rossetti’s feminist revisionist use of typological symbolism. This study thus contributes to the body of knowledge by examining Rossetti's poetics of female self-sacrifice from novel perspectives and through lesser-studied works while suggesting its importance to our understanding of female self-sacrifice in Southeast Asia.

 

Keywords: Christina Rossetti; female self-sacrifice; renunciation; feminist theology; liberation


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2025-3101-14

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