Download Y13 Section B - Ibsen Rossetti Context

Context: Rossetti
Mini Overview of Lifetime:
Christina Georgina Rossetti (December 5, 1830-December 29, 1894), was the youngest of four children, her siblings were Dante
Gabriel Rossetti(the well-known Pre-Raphaelite painter/poet), William Michael Rossetti (a less well-known poet of the PreRaphaelites) and Maria Francesca Rossetti. She was the daughter of Gabriel Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti, a Professor of Italian,
and Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori (Duguid). The Rossettis were a scholarly, artistic and liberal family, so it is not a surprise that
Christina Rossetti began writing poetry at a very young age.
In her late teens, she was involved with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, serving as a model for paintings by William Holman
Hunt, John Everett Millais and her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Duguid). She had three marriage proposals in her life, but
declined all three for what, as speculation would suggest, were religious reasons. However, she was engaged in 1849 to James
Collinson but the engagement ended due to his conversion to Roman Catholicism (Duguid). In the 1860’s, she volunteered at a
home for fallen women run by the All Saints Sisterhood (Leighton). She was in ill health for the majority of her life, and in 1872
was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid and often disfigures the face (Duguid).
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood:
In 1848, Rossetti's brothers, Dante Gabriel and William Michael, along with James Collinson, John Everett Millais, Frederic
George Stephens, Thomas Woolner and William Holman Hunt, founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They sought to model
their work on the style of art and poetry that was popular before the time of the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael (14831520), because they believed that the style of painting that succeeded him was too artificial and formulaic.
By emphasising a concern with representing nature truthfully and incorporating tiny details into their paintings, the PreRaphaelites sought to challenge the traditional methods of producing art, which were expected by the Royal Academy of Arts.
Often, the Pre-Raphaelites used their art to convey particular meanings which they anticipated would be ‘read' by observers who
carefully noted the details of each picture. To this end, they employed symbolic and allegorical imagery. For instance, in Dante
Gabriel's painting, ‘Girlhood of Mary, Virgin', he includes lilies to represent her purity and innocence. He also wrote a set of
sonnets to accompany the painting, in which he highlights ‘the angel watered lily' that the painting foregrounds.
Themes of Victorian Female Poets:
MARRIAGE: Throughout the Victorian era, most girls were brought up to believe that it was their duty, when they reached
adulthood, to get married and have children. With little choice over their own education, they were often taught domestic skills
and trained to care for husbands and children. It was not until 1870 and the introduction of the Married Women's Property Act,
that married women were actually allowed to keep their earnings and inherit property. Before that, they, along with their
possessions, were seen as the rightful property of their husbands.
WOMEN & POWER: The Victorian period witnessed massive changes in thinking about women’s roles in society with much
debate concerning women’s education, employment opportunities, marriage, sexuality, psychology, and the right to vote. Within
this context, Christina Rossetti had complicated views on female suffrage and equality. At times she used the Biblical idea of
woman’s subordination to man as reason for maintaining the status quo, while at others she argued for female representation in
Parliament and spoke out against the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution. In many ways this shows her to be a
particularly complex thinker about the position of women in society and it is certainly a concern which she comes back to time
and again in her poetry. Her views may not always be ‘radical’ as such, but they are usually more subversive than conservative.
ROSSETTI & THE FEMALE VOICE: The act of writing allowed women's voices to be heard and provided them with a
public forum. Christina Rossetti's individual use of metaphor, alliteration and the doubling of ideas and images provide a unique
type of discourse that reflects Rossetti's fractured sense of identity and her concerns and experiences. Meynell and Tynan use
different images and concepts to focus on the female aspects of maternity and faith which were an acceptable source of
discussion for women writers. Elizabeth Barrett Browning harnessed male rationality and logic in her work in order to
manipulate the genre and top move beyond the forces of female suppression. The women were concerned primarily with their
own discourse and ideas which effectively removed them from competing within the male sphere. They manipulated and
attempted to dominate the instruments of their repression in different ways, in order to express their individual desires and drives
through poetic language.
Christina Rossetti's poem offers a more sympathetic view as her struggles with her own temperament and depressions create a
deeper understanding. Christina claimed that Browning would have been a better poet had she been less contented and 'happy'; a
euphemism for being married (Victorian Women Poets: Contemporary Critical Essays, p. 47) Christina's poem 'L.E.L' describes
a woman laughing in 'sport and jest' in public rooms, but yet in 'solitary rooms' she turns her 'face in silence to the wall'
(Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology, pp. 377-8).
Context: Ibsen
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In the case of A Doll’s House, both the world of the play and the world Ibsen lived in are the same. Ibsen wrote A Doll’s
House in Norway in 1879, and the play presumably took place sometime in the same decade. Set in an upper-middle class
home, the play demonstrates the importance of social class in late-19th century Norway.

Born into the upper-middle class himself, Ibsen not only understood the importance of social class, but also the expectations
placed on its members. Likewise, A Doll’s House tells the story of Nora and Torvald: a married couple living in a society
where to keep your social standing, you have to abide by its strict, and at times, suffocating standards. Nora and Torvald are
living proof that upper-middle class life can be a comfortable one–if you fit into its narrow margins.

The growth and prosperity of Norway’s upper-middle class began in 1843, with a great economic boom (Larson). This
boom lasted until approximately 1875, meaning that Nora and Torvald were still reaping its effects (Larson). This boom can
mainly be attributed to Norway’s success in foreign trade, mining and growth in agricultural productivity.
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Norway––which only became an independent nation in 1814––was becoming more industrialized, and therefore bringing
more money into the country as well as creating more jobs and opportunities (Hagemann 417-418). As a result, the uppermiddle class became larger. Before this class existed, most of the people with wealth were a part of the aristocracy, and
therefore born into money (Larson). Now, people could work their way up, and enter into the upper-middle class through
hard work and education (Larson).

While this economic boom brought prosperity, it also brought an obsession with, and an over-awareness of money
(Hagemann 417-419). This is evident in the plot of A Doll’s House. Nora owes Krogstad money, which causes her immense
stress. Torvald is obsessed with staying out of debt. Nora and Torvald are thrilled are at the prospect that Torvald might get
a raise at the bank, which would mean more money for the entire family. However, Torvald’s tight grip around the families
funds lead Nora to lie about what she uses their money for, creating tension and dishonesty in their marriage and, ultimately,
influencing Nora’s decision to leave the house.

Expectations about being upper-middle class were also forming during this time in Norway. Commonly referred to as
“bourgeois respectability,” expectations of the upper middle-class included financial success without any debt, good morals
(or at least making it appear that’s the case), and a stable, patriarchal family (Willcoxon) (Hagemann 417-419). A woman’s
main responsibility centered around being a housewife, whose most prominent task was to serve her husband and
children (Hagemann 417-419). The audience sees this patriarchal structure at work when Nora lets Torvald call her his
“little skylark,” who she does whatever her husband says (Ibsen 2). Torvald is the strong male figure who makes and
manages the money, as well as controlling the household. Clearly aware of the subordination of women in late-19th century
Norwegian society, Ibsen wrote in his notes for A Doll’s House in 1878, “A woman cannot be herself in contemporary
society, it is an exclusively male society with laws drafted by men, and with counsel and judges who judge feminine
conduct from the male point of view” (Ibsen/McFarlane 90).

This is why Nora’s proclamation that she also had “a duty to herself” shocked audiences of the time (Ibsen 82). Not only
was the patriarchal structure a social tradition and something expected of the upper middle class, but there were also laws
that correlated with its ideology. For example, women were not allowed to borrow money without their husbands’ consent
or vote. Again, Nora goes against the social norms when she borrows from and repays money to Krogstad behind Torvald’s
back. Perhaps the only thing about the world of the play that differs from the world of Ibsen is that Nora’s behavior was
completely unprecedented in the 1870’s.

The terms realism and naturalism are closely linked but there are significant differences in what they mean in the theatre:
Realism describes any play that depicts ordinary people in everyday situations; Naturalism is a form of realism that
particularly focuses on how technology and science affect society as a whole, as well as how society and genetics affect
individuals.
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Beginning in the early nineteenth century, realism was an artistic movement that moved away from the unrealistic situations
and characters that had been the basis of Romantic theatre. The playwright Henrik Ibsen is regarded as the father of
modern realism because of the three-dimensional characters he created