As mentioned in the article \u201cChristina Rossetti: gender and power\u201d by Simon Avery, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an inspiration to Christina Rossetti. They were very different poets but both had common concern with the politics of gender and power in their poetry. Rossetti\u2019s poem \u201cNo Thank You, John\u201d appears different at first glance but is actually similar to Elizabeth Barrett Browning\u2019s poem \u201cA Man\u2019s Requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without close reading, \u201cNo Thank You John\u201d is a poem of a woman denying a man\u2019s love and \u201cA Man\u2019s Requirements\u201d is a poem of a woman trying to please her man. They appear to be opposites. However, their implications of gender and power are closely related. \u201cNo Thank You John\u201d depicts a female using her right to say no to a man. It asserts her independence and equality in a relationship. The last two lines of the poem read \u201cHere\u2019s friendship for you if you like; but love, No, thank you, John.\u201d Rossetti is saying that a woman doesn\u2019t have to love a man just because he loves her. She can choose who to be with and what she wants in a relationship.<\/p>\n
The last two lines of \u201cA Man\u2019s Requirements\u201d portray a similar message. The poem reads, \u201cI will love thee-half a year- as a man is able.\u201d Given the fact that the author of \u201cA Man\u2019s Requirements\u201d is female, it is possible to interpret the poem as saying a woman can love just as much and as well as a man. Depending on who you interpret the speaker as (a male or female), the poem could also be depicting what a woman wants from her man. The \u201cman\u2019s\u201d requirements could also be the women\u2019s requirements from her man. By Browning giving requirements for a man to have her love, she too is asserting her independence and equal part in the relationship.<\/p>\n
Though one poem denies love and the other seeks love, they both emphasize a woman\u2019s power over her relationships. Women are equal counterparts to their significant male.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As mentioned in the article \u201cChristina Rossetti: gender and power\u201d by Simon Avery, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an inspiration to Christina Rossetti. They were very different poets but both had common concern with the politics of gender and power in their poetry. Rossetti\u2019s poem \u201cNo Thank You, John\u201d appears different at first glance but is … Continue reading Gender and Power as told by Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth Browning<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","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\/2026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}