A Sonnet And Dante's Dichotomy

In his poem, “A Sonnet,” Dante Gabriel Rossetti uses a series of paradoxical statements and concepts to establish the sonnet’s multi-faceted character and importance. Likewise, Christina Rossetti’s poem, “In an Artist’s Studio,” also uses juxtaposition, as it presents art and painting as a mirror. However, these poems interpret this binary nature of art in opposite ways; while Dante uses binaries to celebrate the depth and diversity of art, Christina ultimately uses dichotomies to establish an inherent inauthenticity about art. These different interpretations largely depend on how each poet attempts to reconcile the duality of art into one, complete concept. While Dante portrays the sonnet as a composite of two distinct characters, these two