Christina Rossetti: Context

LIFE, RELIGION AND EDUCATION:

Christina Rossetti was born in December 1830 into an artist family. Her father, Gabriel Rossetti, was a poet and political exile whilst her brothers were members of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood (a group of artists founded in 1848). Although she was linked to this group, Christina was not a member of it. Rossetti was educated by her parents at home. Italian writers, such as Dante Alighieri and Petrarch heavily influenced her later work. During the 1840s, Christina’s father became ill and never physically recovered. Because of this, she had a nervous breakdown at the age of 14, where bouts of depression and similar illnesses followed. Whilst this was happening, she, her mother and her sister became interested in the Anglo-Catholic movement that developed in the Church of England. Christina was romantically involved with three suitors. In her late teens, Rossetti became engaged to a painter called James Collinson. He was also one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The engagement was broken in 1850 when he reverted to Catholicism. Later she became involved with a linguist called Charles Cayley, but declined to marry him, also for religious reasons. The third offer came from the painter John Brett, who she also refused. Rossetti’s first poems were written in 1842 and printed in the private press of her grandfather. In 1850, under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne, she contributed seven poems to the Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ, which had been founded by her brother William Michael and his friends. Rossetti’s best-known work, Goblin Market and Other Poems, was published in 1862. The collection established Rossetti as a significant voice in Victorian poetry. The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems, appeared in 1866 followed by Sing-Song, a collection of verse for children, in 1872.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN AT THE TIME AND ROSSETTI’S VIEWS ON THIS:

The women’s suffrage became a national movement in 1872, where women decided to fight for the right to vote. It was not until 1918 that women who were over the age of 30 were granted the vote and not until 1928 that they were granted the right to vote on the same terms as men. The poet Augusta Webster wrote to Rossetti in the late 1870s asking for her support in a campaign she was involved with, which aimed to give women the right to vote. Rossetti refused this as she believed men and women were created by God as fundamentally different creatures. Because of their fundamental differences, Rossetti believed that men and women should have different responsibilities and rights. Rossetti was aware of the of the pressure society put on women to conform to expected standards, however, her awareness was only acute. In her poem, The Lowest Room, she contrasts the life of a Victorian woman confined to working on some embroidery at home, with the life of classical heroes. At one point, she has her speaker compare the life of a wife to the life of a slave. This comparison was common along women writers, as the English law still withheld any legal status from married women. During the Christina’s lifetime, if a woman did not fit societies idea that women should be girl-like and innocent angel, they were often seen as being a dangerous threat. By combining confidence and fairness, many of her poems challenge this idea, to present a much more balanced picture of womanhood. Rossetti was concerned with the welfare of women who wanted to come out of prostitution. During the 1860's, she worked as a volunteer in a home for women deemed as ‘fallen' by Victorian society. Rossetti recognised that, according to the Christian principle of forgiveness, these women did not and should not be deemed outcasts for the rest of their lives. Instead, she sought to change commonplace and stereotyped assumptions. Throughout her poetry, she uses the figure of Mary Magdalene to highlight the fact that women who have once been prostitutes can undergo a complete change.