1.10 am, and surviving on coffee and Rossetti in preparation for the Lit paper 1 exam. Rant warning: reading through my Rossetti file has not put me in a good mood. No one should EVER go through too much Rossetti at one go; I used to like her before this. Now I think her poetry is so darn optimistic, I can hardly breathe.

I mean I have nothing against Rossetti as a poet. As a poet, if I sidestep for a moment all her more religious poetry, she actually does fine—I have quite a few favourites in “A Pause of Thought”, “Mirage”, “The Heart Knoweth Its Own Bitterness” etc. What I really dislike (in a mild sense) is the woman herself, the person, who seems to me not to be aware that she is a person. Renounce, renounce, renounce… I think Rossetti is one darn heck of a repressed woman, and having to plough my way through pages and pages of renunciation and restrained emotions is making me feel seriously repressed myself. Everything is God this and God that which I (excuse me here) absolutely cannot connect to and, even if I am in no position to criticize, her own brother and critic commented that she ceased to be able to think for herself… nothing was “wrong” or “right” in her own terms, all was left to whether or not it conformed to Anglican beliefs. I absolutely cannot see why she is so well admired, and yet for the convenience of getting a good grade I have to grit my teeth and lie through them, and do it terribly well into the bargain.

Has she ever thought that if the sole purpose of life was to long and pray for the day she could “renunciate” everything and be reunited with her precious God again… then what was she given life in the first place for?

...Though I suppose I should have better things to do with my time, than get irritated with people who died like, oh, just a couple of centuries ago.