Notes on Christina Rossetti's Good Friday

Good Friday;
~The day that Jesus was crucified, sky went dark and dingy.
~Betrayal of Peter
~Mary Madeline, reformed prostitute, morns for Jesus, wipes his face.
~Mother, Mary crying over Jesus.


~"Am I a stone, and not a sheep" Interrogative, anxious question. "stone" Has an alternative relationship with God, doesn't conform to religious rituals. Shows anxiety that she is not following God like society is.
~"...with exceeding grief lamented thee" Too much, she's criticising. Doesn't see herself like other women (Mary and Martha). Sticks out from Victorian context.
~Rhetorical and negative structure in stanzas 1 and 2.
~"Yet, give no o'er" Tips the balance from darkness with a connective-equilibrium.
~Sense of isolation and doubt, fear and emotion.


How does Rossetti explore human emotion in this poem and others you have studied?


Rossetti often explores different human emotions through the theme of faith and religion. Rossetti being a devout Anglican and being from a very expressive family of poets and artists is very in touch with her emotions, so much so that she experienced an emotional breakdown and the tender age of 12. Specifically in Good Friday however, Rossetti suggests to be very aware of her emotional detachment from Jesus' crucifixion but is very anxious as to why she feels this way to the extent that she compares herself to a mere stone "beneath thy cross" which is a metaphor for her absence of emotion.


The first stanza of Good Friday suggests a slight anxiety through the interrogative, "Am I a stone.." in which Rossetti shows apprehension that she is not confirming to popular emotion and compares herself to a stone which could be the representation for her lack sincerity towards Jesus' death. Rossetti recognises that her lack of emotion is abnormal when she says she is "not a sheep" in which Jesus is the Shepard. Rossetti then humbles herself beneath the cross, crying out "O'Christ" which is emphasized in this first stanza with the use of a caesura before and after the expression of desolation. Yet again Rossetti describes her lack of remorse by describing, forensically, "thy blood's slow loss." This use of sibilance truly emphasizes Rossetti's emotional detachment.