Symbolism of Love and Death in Christina Rossetti’s Six Poems (A New Criticism Approach) (2024)

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ABSTRACT
The objectives of this research are to identify the idea of love and death in Christina Rossetti’s six poems and to identify the symbols used in expressing love and death in her poems.
This research employs New Criticism approach and applies New Criticism theory to answer the problem statements. This thesis is a descriptive qualitative library research.The data is divided into the main and secondary data. The main data or primary data of this research are taken from Christina Rossetti: Poem and Prose (2008) published by Oxford University Press. The selected poems are “Remember”, “Song”, “After Death”, “Echo”, “An End” and “A Pause”. Meanwhile, the secondary data are taken from any sources that support the analysis of the data, both from books and online resources.
The six poems of Christina Rossetti analyzed in this research contain love and death theme that are written in simplicity and symbolical. As the result of this research, love of man is something that is not eternal, love of man is not such to be sacrificed. Meanwhile, death is not something to be mourned because it is a gain. Death is also something that is longed for. Furthermore, the symbols used in expressing love and death are the use of flower and plants as symbol such roses, rosemary and cypress tree. Objects related to sound such as “song’ and “echo” are also used as symbols to express love and death. The other objects that are considered as symbols are sleep, bed, darkness, and corruption. Rossetti also uses autumn as symbol for expressing death.
Keywords: love and death, symbol, New Criticism, and Christina Rossetti’s poems.

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