Victorian Women's Loss of Innocence: Rossetti's Poetic Perspective

Sexual Dalliance and its Outcomes in Victorian Society: Christina Rossetti’s “An Apple Gathering” and “Cousin Kate”

In her poems Christina Rossetti references the loss of innocence stemming from premarital sexual encounters. In both the poems “An Apple Gathering” and “Cousin Kate”, Rossetti tells stories of women who lost their purity before marriage, and therefore deemed outcasts of society. These acts of dalliance exhibit how the loss of innocence can affect a Victorian woman’s life. Each poem begins with the introduction of the women who pursued physical relationships, followed by their abandonment by men, and thus, living their lives as outcasts. In Victorian times, women were often ridiculed for losing their innocence by engaging in sexual activities before marriage. This impurity was frowned upon and usually caused the women to be considered unqualified for marriage. Innocence and purity were primary contributors to the holiness of angels which was both desired and mandatory in the eyes of those looking for a wife. According to Atony Harrison, “fear and sublimation of female sexual desire and insistence upon the dangerous, if not fatal,

Watching her past lover marry a woman who is “good and pure” (25) rather than herself angers the speaker. Because she went against the norms of Victorian society, which is paralleled by the praise the neighbours place on her cousin for remaining pure. However, the speaker in “Cousin Kate” has a child with her former lover, and although she appears happy, she refers to her son not by name, but as subhuman reminder of her actions; “my shame” (45). The symbolic nature of this name shows the regret and humiliation she will carry for the remainder of her life, as birthing an illegitimate child has caused her to become even more of an outcast in Victorian