How does Christina Rossetti present ideas of strength and power of women within her poem ‘Maude Clare’? In your answer, you should make reference to other poems within the collection.

Rossetti's portrayal of the strength and power of women in 'Maude Clare' is particularly interesting considering that the prevailing view in the Victorian era was that women should be more submissive and men more dominant. It is significant that Rosetti structures the poem in the form of a ballad with alternate iambic trimeter and tetrameter, as ballads traditionally were written to 'attack' a certain institution; Rossett's being the Victorian society and treatment of women. Both 'Jessie Cameron' and 'Cousin Kate', also written by Rossetti, demonstrate ballad-like qualities to make a moral statement. However, in 'Jessie Cameron', the line "we two alone" is written in dimeter to emphasise their complete desertion from the rest of the world, which breaks this ballad form. This reflects how Rossetti's protagonist, 'Jessie Cameron', is not afraid to break strict Victorian regulations when she subverts the traditional views by rejecting the unnamed male character, suggesting that she is superior and carries a demeanour of which all women feared to portray - as did Rossetti when she rejected more than one proposal in her lifetime. In doing this, Rossetti urges both Victorn and contemporary readers to adopt such attitudes of courgage, strength and power, and this is supported by American academic and textual scholar Jerome Mcgann who noted that 'her heroines characteristically choose to stand alone'.