Prof. Petra Caruana Dingli
University of Malta
Monastic women in the dramatic poetry of Christina Rossetti and Augusta Webster
ABSTRACT: Images of women behind high convent walls and in cloistered gardens captured the nineteenth-century imagination. Monastic life was a recurrent theme in Victorian medievalist poetry and painting. This coincided with a rise in women’s religious congregations, convents and nuns in England. At the same time, a surge of political interest in the role and rights of women in society was developing. This paper explores Victorian dramatic poetry on religious women and convents, focusing on works by Christina Rossetti and Augusta Webster that engage with themes of religion and gender. Their fascination with medieval cloistered women intersects with a critique of contemporary life, in a new literary form. The dramatic monologue, a hybrid of dramatic, lyrical, and narrative verse, was one of the most significant poetic innovations of the age. Dramatized speakers presented in this genre consider philosophical, political, and religious topics, while provoking judgement on the part of the reader.
Petra Caruana Dingli is Associate Professor at the Edward de Bono Institute for Creative Thinking and Innovation at the University of Malta. She also lectures on literature within the Faculty of Arts. She has long-standing experience working within the cultural heritage sector. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, most recently focusing on concepts of creativity and heritage in nineteenth-century literature, and on women, religion and the culture of writing in early modern Malta.