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- Title
'JENNY'S CAGE-BIRD': SYMBOLIC REALISM IN D. G. ROSSETTI'S `JENNY'.
- Authors
Rivers, Bryan
- Abstract
This article focuses on the concept of songbirds used in Gabriel Rossetti's poem "Jenny." Several commentators have interpreted Jenny's songbird symbolically. Jan B. Gordon argues that only by becoming part of an aesthetic harmony can Jenny achieve a qualified liberation from the inner confines of a prostitute's chamber. The emblem of this liberation is the cage-bird whose voice at dawn is harmonized with the sparrows on the outside. Special correspondent from London, England, Daniel J. Kirwan, stated that speculation regarding the prostitutes' motivation for keeping songbirds also indicates how some Victorian readers might have responded empathetically to Jenny's situation.
- Subjects
JENNY (Poem); SONGBIRDS; KIRWAN, Daniel J.; SPARROWS; SEX workers; ROSSETTI, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882; CAGE birds
- Publication
Notes & Queries, 2005, Vol 52, Issue 1, p75
- ISSN
0029-3970
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1093/notesj/gji129