Christina Rossetti
Biography
Christina Rossetti was born in London (1830).
Her father was a professor and a poet. Three of his children also became writers and poets.
Her brother Dante also gained fame as a painter.
She privately published her first collection of poems when she was only 17 years old.
Under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne, she contributed seven poems to the Pre-Raphaelite journal
'The Germ' in 1850. Her first public poems appeared in the 'Athenaeum' when she was eighteen.
She wrote prolifically throughout her life. With the publication of the erotic 'Goblin Market'
(1862) Christina was established as one of the most significant poetesses of her time.
Many of Christina Rossetti’s writings reflect her deep religious devotion. She was a High Church
Anglican and a disciple of Tractarianism (also know as the Oxford Movement).
As a girl, Christina Rossetti was spirited, passionate, and even hot-tempered. Instead of
blossoming into vivacious womanhood, however, the adolescent Christina sickened with
an unexplained illness characterized by a suffocating sensation, chest pains and heart
palpitations. At least one physician diagnosed her with the Victorian catch-all, hysteria.
Returned to health, Christina became shy, restrained, prim, scrupulous and intensely devoted
to her religion. This religious scrupulousness led Christina to reject two marriage proposals.
In 1848 she became engaged to James Collinson, but broke the engagement when Collinson
reverted to Roman Catholicism. In the 1860s she rejected a proposal from Charles Bagot Cayley,
a translator of Dante. She enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian.
After her father’s death in 1854, Christina and her mother Frances Polidori lived with her brother
William. When he married the agnostic Lucy Madox Brown (daughter of Ford Madox Brown)
in 1874, Christina and Frances moved in with two Polidori aunts. Her mother died in 1886
and Christina, who had been weakened and disfigured by Graves’ disease in 1871, continued
to care for her aunts until their deaths in 1890 and 1893.
From 1860 to 1870, Christina was an associate at St. Mary Magdelene’s at Highgate, a sisterhood
devoted to redeeming fallen women, where her sister Maria was one of the nuns.
Christina was also closely involved in promoting the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
from the 1870s until just before her death from cancer on December 29, 1894.
SAPPHO I sigh at day-dawn, and I sigh Christina Rossetti was born in London (1830).
Her father was a professor and a poet. Three of his children also became writers and poets.
Her brother Dante also gained fame as a painter.
She privately published her first collection of poems when she was only 17 years old.
Under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne, she contributed seven poems to the Pre-Raphaelite journal
'The Germ' in 1850. Her first public poems appeared in the 'Athenaeum' when she was eighteen.
She wrote prolifically throughout her life. With the publication of the erotic 'Goblin Market'
(1862) Christina was established as one of the most significant poetesses of her time.
Many of Christina Rossetti’s writings reflect her deep religious devotion. She was a High Church
Anglican and a disciple of Tractarianism (also know as the Oxford Movement).
As a girl, Christina Rossetti was spirited, passionate, and even hot-tempered. Instead of
blossoming into vivacious womanhood, however, the adolescent Christina sickened with
an unexplained illness characterized by a suffocating sensation, chest pains and heart
palpitations. At least one physician diagnosed her with the Victorian catch-all, hysteria.
Returned to health, Christina became shy, restrained, prim, scrupulous and intensely devoted
to her religion. This religious scrupulousness led Christina to reject two marriage proposals.
In 1848 she became engaged to James Collinson, but broke the engagement when Collinson
reverted to Roman Catholicism. In the 1860s she rejected a proposal from Charles Bagot Cayley,
a translator of Dante. She enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian.
After her father’s death in 1854, Christina and her mother Frances Polidori lived with her brother
William. When he married the agnostic Lucy Madox Brown (daughter of Ford Madox Brown)
in 1874, Christina and Frances moved in with two Polidori aunts. Her mother died in 1886
and Christina, who had been weakened and disfigured by Graves’ disease in 1871, continued
to care for her aunts until their deaths in 1890 and 1893.
From 1860 to 1870, Christina was an associate at St. Mary Magdelene’s at Highgate, a sisterhood
devoted to redeeming fallen women, where her sister Maria was one of the nuns.
Christina was also closely involved in promoting the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
from the 1870s until just before her death from cancer on December 29, 1894.
When the dull day is passing by.
I sigh at evening, and again
I sigh when night brings sleep to men.
Oh! it were far better to die
Than thus forever mourn and sigh,
And in death's dreamless sleep to be
Unconscious that none weep for me;
Eased from my weight of heaviness,
Forgetful of forgetfulness,
Resting from care and pain and sorrow
Thro' the long night that knows no morrow;
Living unloved, to die unknown,
Unwept, untended, and alone.
FONTE (image include): Christina Rossetti - Poetry
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