Contents:
APPLITN OF LBIAN AND GAY “QUEER” CRICISM
It is also very, very gay. Bis, I uldn’t stop hearg that all-too faiar voice, tellg me to “stop makg everythg gay. Their iend Jeanie has done this before them, wh the rult that she “who for joys bris hope to have / Fell sick and died / In her gay prime” (ll.
” In the poems Gobl Market and No, Thank You, John, Christa Rossetti subverts the ia that female characters mt rema submissive and rigned to accept nventnal heterosexual, male-domated relatnships which were promoted patriarchal Victorian society, and should stead embrace pennce, sisterhood and homosexualy. ” Although a fay un nsistg only of men, and ed homosexual relatnships between men, would be equally as unnventnal as Rossetti’s prentatn of Lra and Lizzie’s fay un, aterni the Victorian era were wily accepted, cludg the Pre-Raphael and the Freemasons. One uld go as far as to say that Rossetti’s female characters engage homosexualy and reject men both romantilly and sexually altogether, which centr them as the ma foc of Rossetti’s love poetry.
Both Lra, and to a lser extent, Lizzie display signs of homosexual behavur. ” The ia that Lra has no other alternative but to be forced to the “prostutn” of heterosexualy due to the erasure of homosexual relatnships 19th Century Wtern society is credible, as women engaged prostutn only the most sperate of circumstanc, which Rossetti was aware of om her experienc workg wh prostut at the St Mary Magdalene Penentiary. In sence, Rossetti’s foc on the predatory nature of a man’s pursu of women and the rejectn of this by female characters both ‘Gobl Market’ and ‘No, Thank You, John, ’ and the emphasis on the importance of sisterhood and embracg homosexualy the former, serv to empower the female characters to embrace themselv, other women and their own sexualy.