The poem entitled A Pause of Thought by Christina Rossetti details the feelings of a poetic voice that longs for something yet feels as though she may not ever have it. The voice states that she is \u201cfoolish\u201d for continuing to endure the pain of not having what she wants (Rossetti, 33). Despite the suffering caused by wanting something that may be impossible to have, the narrator remains hopeful and continues to want that which she cannot have. The object of desire is not made explicit, and may be unrequited love or a sense of agency, which were two of the most important things that women during the Victorian era longed for yet could rarely have. The idea of marriage for love was a relatively new idea for women during this time period, as women were supposed to marry for good financial and social standing instead of for love. As well, women were not thought to have the agency of men during this time period, and so the idea of a woman longing for true love and having such freedom in her life was an unpopular idea. The narrator states \u201cAnd hope deferred made my heart sick in truth: But years must pass before a hope of youth \/ Is resigned utterly\u201d in the first stanza of the poem, which contains the idea that knowing that the pursuit of agency and love may be fruitless is repeated throughout the poem, as is the narrator\u2019s unwillingness to abandon hope (Rossetti, 32). The poem may be thought to acknowledge the difficulties of a woman\u2019s position during the Victorian era with a sense of doubtfulness that things would change for the better, however it also includes a sense of hopefulness about the status of women in the future. The poem may express the idea of women having their own freedom and agency in love and in life much like the exclusive status of freedom and brotherhood held by the men that Rossetti knew during this time period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The poem entitled A Pause of Thought by Christina Rossetti details the feelings of a poetic voice that longs for something yet feels as though she may not ever have it. The voice states that she is \u201cfoolish\u201d for continuing to endure the pain of not having what she wants (Rossetti, 33). Despite the suffering … Continue reading A New Role for Women in A Pause of Thought<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3883,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}