An Exploration Into Christina Rossetti’s Poetic Innovation From A Misreading Perspective

Born in 1830, Christina Georgina Rossetti, by the time of her death at the end of 1894, had been for some decades widely regarded as the natural heir of Elizabeth Barret Browning, and Poet Laureate to be. She may not have been wholly surprised by that. For in spite of the defensive self-deprecation that is often found in her social letters, she is struggling for poetic individuation against the powerful influence of her precursor poets headed by John Keats and her brother Dante Gabriel in her poems.Previous study testifies Rossetti’s view of the world is informed by her Christian beliefs, that her world is under the sway of conflicting passions that ends in asceticism. There is much in Rossetti’s poetry that hasn’t been explained. It is in light of Harold Bloom’s theory of misreading that her poetic alter ego is explored: directed by the Ariadners’ thread of innovative misreading which is bequeathed by Muse, she strives to establish her individual poetic domain in the labyrinth where everlasting monuments of precursor poets constitute the pillars.This paper consists of five parts. The first Chapter gives an introduction of her melancholy of influence. In Chapter two, previous studies on Christina Rossetti’s poetry worldwide and nationwide are classified. Theory of biography, history of criticism, feminist theory, and devotional poetics leave present exploration with much vacuum to fulfill. Chapter three focuses on the theory of misreading. Chapter four and five expound the intra-poetic relationship between Christina Rossetti and her precursors. Each precursor involved is also studied from the perspective of misreading. In the end, the last chapter comes up with conclusion that the anxiety of poetic influence helps with forging Christina Rossetti’s innovative poetic system.