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Mariaconcetta Costantini
Universita 'G. d'Annunzio'

Christina's Challenge to Victorian Mentality: The Parodic, Unconventional Pattern of 'My Dream'.

The aim of my paper is that of investigating the transgressive implications of some works by Christina Rossetti, which display a singular relish for language experimentation and disturbing fantasies. Despite her religious preoccupations, the poetess recognized the inadequacy of literary and social conventions, and constantly defied them in her verse. If it is true that she often managed to conceal such rebellious tension under a seemingly conventional structure, it is equally true that the peculiar combination of irony, grotesqueness, and wordplay she accomplished in some poems is a testimony to her wish to rebel against the strictness and rigidity of the poetic canon and the behavioural code of her age. One the one hand, Rossetti perceived the limits and the flaws of a literary and cultural tradition that still contributed to mould the Victorian frame of mind. On the other, she could not ignore the disquieting effects of nineteenth-century theories and discoveries (i.e. Darwinism) that shook the very foundations of contemporary beliefs. This blend of unorthodox, subversive issues is the source of her ambiguous portrayal of reality - a portrayal that is sometimes achieved through a parodic dismantling of artistic and social clichés. The intertextual references to the Troubadour and the Italian tradition, which are explicitly parodied in Monna Innominata, the revision of Romantic stereotypes (the demon-lover figure, the ballad themes, the symbolic birds), and the daring stylistic innovations, are all instances of an open-minded attitude to art and reality at large. In confronting with the canon and the dominant culture both diachronically and synchronically, Christina recognizes the limitation of many poetic stereotypes and experiments with new forms of expression which might render the complexity of life. A paramount example of her revisionist stance can be traced in the linguistic, semantic and intertextual pattern of 'My Dream' (MD). Written in 1855, MD is quite an eccentric poem. Its dream-form, which gives the author total freedom to represent morbid visions, and its elusive symbolism hurt the sensibility of Victorian readers. William Michael himself, who was irritated by its witty tone and its obscurity, declared: one seeks for a meaning in it, and I for one cannot find any that bears development'. Briefly, what I wish to demonstrate is how MD challenges the Victorian ethos by conveying a sense of unsolvable mystery. First, Christina merges literary allusions spanning over centuries and, in parodying them, shows how simple allegory legitimises cultural prejudices. Secondly, she indulges in a fierce, Darwinian description of a cannibal feast, which cancels any hopes in a teleological design. Thirdly, she employs some odd dialogic strategies that both entice and frustrate the reader's curiosity. These latter devices, in particular, create a sense of hermeneutic confusion which is a further index of Rossetti's 'cosmopolitan' attitude. In teasing the reader, who is encouraged to embark in a vain search for meaning, she challenges the interpretative guidelines of her times and manifests her wish to replace closeness with elusiveness, certainty with doubt, uniformity with diversity.