"A conciousness of gender.."

I believe that Rossetti is and should be considered a feminist writer. After reading through her poems, one will notice that she never states the speaker as a he but only as a she. Not every poem clarifys its speaker as a certain gender, but from the wording and rhyme of the poems one most likely will interpret the speaker as a woman. For example the poem A birthday, the speaker is not represented as a man or woman but when reading lines such as "My heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea, my heart is gladder than all these because my love is come to me", with a "sing song" rhyme and with dramatic wordings of love the gender of the speaker is most likely meant to be seen as a woman joyous for her love to come to her.

Also in her description she is without a father from the time she was an adolescent. She was very religious and never married. She stuck to what she believed and became a highly independent woman, helping fallen women in a female penetentary as a volunteer. She was very passionate with helping women and i believe that was represented through her poetry.