Rossetti Context (Social + Biographical)

Social + biographical

Father (Gabriel Rossetti)

• an Italian poet and political exile

• a Dante scholar and teacher of Italian in London

• his health collapsed when R was 13y.o leaving him unable to teach so R’s mother took up former employment and 2 of her other siblings also took on employment. R stayed home as a companion to her ailing fahter

Mother (Frances Polidori)

• brother is John William Polidori (author of ‘The Vampyre’)

• R dedicated her first poetry collection Verses to her mother

• R wrote her first poem "To my Mother on her Birthday" when she was 11.

early education

• All children received their earliest education from their mother (who had trained as a governess and was committed to cultivating intellectual excellence in her family)

• When Frances Rossetti (the mother) read to her children she favoured religious texts such as the Bible, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)- differed when the boy’s went to school.

• Chose different things when picking themselves e.g.

  Sir Walter Scott (European Romanticism), Ann Radcliffe (pioneer of Gothic fiction).

childhood

• Very happy. Affectionate parental care and the creative companionship of older siblings.

• In temperament she was most like her brother DGR, their father called the pair the "two storms" of the family in comparison to the "two calms" Maria and William.

• Christina was given to tantrums and fractious behaviour, she fought hard to subdue this passionate temper, however, in adulthood she was excessively restrained

• The children produced a family newspaper, "The Hodge-Podge or Weekly Efforts", the first issue dated 20th May 1843. a later periodical was titled "The Illustrated Scrapbook"

• Her early poetic efforts included experiments in lyric, devotional, pastoral, ballad and fantasy forms.

work with fallen women

• In early 1859 began volunteering at a charitable institution (St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate) for the reclamation of 'fallen' women.

• By the summer of 1859 she was devoting a great deal of time to her work at Highgate and its influence can be seen in her poems about illicit love, betrayal and illegitimacy.

• The theme of a fallen woman saved by a 'sister' can be seen as informed by her experiences at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary, she was known as 'Sister Christina'

• She also petitioned for legislation to protect children from prostitution and sexual exploitation by raising the age of consent.

PRB and R’s poetry

• DGR was gathering the circle of young men of the PRB. He assumed Christina would participate, but she was never a member and refused to have her works read aloud.

• Nevertheless her poetry has been described as Pre-Raphaelite in its rich and precise natural detail, its use of symbol, its poignancy, and its deliberate medievalism.

• However more recent critics have remarked that the PR elements have been overemphasised at the expense of proper notice of the Tractarian influences.

• But she was defo involved - She sat as Mary for Dante Gabriel’s paintings The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-1849) and Ecce Ancilla Domini! (1850), and her pensive Italianate countenance was a familiar image in the first phase of the movement.

• The art and poetry of the brotherhood has a strong sacramental element, and Rossetti had more in common with this early manifestation of the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic than she did with its later developments.

Ruskin’s opinion on Goblin Market

• DGR sent 'Goblin Market' to art critic John Ruskin, Ruskin's criticism of it is infamous.

• He singled out for criticism the original meter that is now so often praised: He acknowledged the poem's 'beauty and power' but asserted it as unpublishable because of its 'irregular measure’, stating that the public wouldn’t like it.

role of her older brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

• In poetics, my elder brother as my acute and most helpful critic.'

• Throughout her career, Dante Gabriel not only critiqued her work but also negotiated with publishers, assisted with book design, corrected proofs, and provided illustrations for her publications.

• 1866- almost daily correspondence between them.

critical reception of Goblin Market and Other Poems

• a critical success, critics welcoming a fresh and original poetic voice

R’s relationship w religion + literature

• More than half of her poetic output is devotional, and the works of her later years in both poetry and prose are almost exclusively so.

• Throughout her life her dedication to Anglo-Catholicism intensified, taking some odd forms such as her habit of stooping to pick up stray pieces of paper on the street lest they have the Lord's name printed on them.

R and illness

• In 1845 she, 2 years after her father's collapse in health, suffered a decline in health.

• Some thought her symptoms were psychosomatic/ religious mania.

• From 1870-2 Rossetti was dangerously ill, at times apparently near death. She was then diagnosed with Graves' disease. Although she recovered, the threat of a relapse always remained.

• Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1892 and underwent a mastectomy performed in her own home.

 

Who were the men who Rossetti rejected?

1. James Collinson (1848)

2. Charles Bagot Cayley (1866)

why was James Collinson rejected

• In 1848 PRB James Collinson proposed marriage but was turned down due to his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism.

• He returned to the Church of England, proposed a second time and was accepted.

• Engagement ended in the Spring of 1850 when Collinson reverted to Catholicism.

why was Charles Cayley rejected

• In the autumn of 1866 she declined an offer of marriage from Charles Cayley.

• Cayley shared the Rossetti's enthusiasm for Dante and endearing himself to them with his attentive visits during their father's final illness.

  A hesitant romance probably began to develop around 1862.

• Rejected “on grounds of religious faith.

what was Cayley and Rossetti’s relationship like

• A hesitant romance

• Cayley and Rossetti remained close until his death in 1883, she served as his literary executor.

• After Rossetti's death, William found in her desk a series of twenty-one highly personal poems written in Italian titled ‘The Reddening Dawn’- thought to be addressed to Cayley.

R and women (social AO3)

• During the early 1860s Rossetti was often in contact with female artists, including the members of the Portfolio Society, an informal group organised by Barbara Bodichon and female poets, such as Jean Ingelow and Dora Greenwell.

• She published poems in the feminist periodicals The English Woman's Journal and Victoria Magazine and in various anthologies.

R’s political views later in life

• Although becoming increasingly reclusive, she became more politically outspoken in later years.

• Critical of slavery, imperialism and military aggression, she was most passionately committed to the antivivisection movement (against animal experimentation).

• She also petitioned for legislation to protect children from prostitution and sexual exploitation by raising the age of consent.

Petrarchan Sonnet

The Petrarchan Sonnet was made by Italian poet Petrarch in the 16th century. Her father was an Italian scholar and teacher, who Rossetti had a close relationship to (being his main caregiver when he fell ill). Rossetti's ethnicity was primarily Italian, reflected in her surname.

DGR

Rossetti's brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a key member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English poets who indulged in hedonistic behaviours such as drinking and sex. Rossetti disagreed with their way of life and felt isolated as a result of her devotion to religious purity.

desire for religious purity

Rossetti strived after religious purity throughout her life, suffering many religious breakdowns as early as fourteen years old, a doctor even suggesting she might be afflicted with a kind of religious mania. Ultimately, her dedication to remain pure, leading to a lack of socialisation with peers, led to her isolation from Victorian society as a result creating a sense of alienation presenting her intense desire to renounce corruption and degeneration.

bouts of illness (links to graves disease)

• Rossetti had bouts of serious illness throughout her life;

• William insists in his memoir that one cannot understand his sister unless one recognizes that she “was an almost constant and often a sadly-smitten invalid.”

• She had graves disease- made her look less attractive.

Graves disease

From 1870-2 Rossetti was dangerously ill, at times apparently near death. She was then diagnosed with Graves' disease. Although she recovered, the threat of a relapse always remained. Moreover, the crisis let her appearance permanently altered and her heart weakened. She lost her beauty and was confronted with the idea of ageing fast.

Rehabilitation of fallen women in her poetry

The rehabilitation of a fallen woman could link to her volunteering at a charitable institution for fallen women in Highgate where she was known as 'sister Christina'. From 1859-1870

Richard Frederick Littledale

Rossetti's devotion to religion: she had close ties to Richard Frederick Littledale, a High Church theologian who became her spiritual adviser.

rejections of marriage proposals

• In 1848 PRB James Collinson proposed marriage but was turned down due to his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism. He returned to the Church of England, proposed a second time and was accepted. The engagement ended in the Spring of 1850 when Collinson reverted to Catholicism.

• In the autumn of 1866 she declined an offer of marriage from Charles Bagot Cayley. She turned him down on "grounds of religious faith", however they remained close until his death.

gender roles

Gender roles more distinct (separate spheres) of the domestic (women) and the public.

women and education + view on sexuality

• Women weren't allowed to continue higher education (their education largely focusing on the domestic) + no economic ability meant that they had to marry.

Contagious diseases act (1864)

1864 was passed in an attempt to curb rising venereal diseases (like syphilis), suspected prostitutes were arrested and examined by police, put in Lock Hospital' until they were cured.

view on women’s sexual behaviour

• Strict societal expectations about women's behaviour - especially sexuality.

• There was a distinct double standard, and women suffered much more serious consequences for their sexual actions than did men.

• Partially due to women being seen as morally superior, so it was a bigger loss.

expectations of chastity / fallen women

• Women were expected to remain virgins until they married, be faithful throughout marriage, and avoid the appearance of being interested in sex.

• Husbands could divorce their wives for being unfaithful, and many works of art/literature in the 19th century represented the fallen woman as abandoned by her family, husband and lover.

Connotations of the word sister

• 19th Century Sisterhoods: Caregivers and Nurturers

• Trained single women e.g. in teaching/ nursing
  Rooted in the Oxford movement, evolved into Anglican and secular sisterhoods.

• Volunteered to reform 'fallen women' and develop professional nursing jobs.

• Criticisms included recruitment of higher-class women, concerns about women gaining higher education, and potential contamination.

• Despite criticisms, revered for their life of sacrifice and noble deeds.

laudanum/drug addiction

The dangers of drug addiction - Laudanum, an opium based medicine, was widely taken as an addictive recreational drug in Victorian society

Her sister in law Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Siddal died of a laudanum overdose

view on spinsters

Spinsters referred to unmarried women who were seen as shameful and problematic- Rossetti = isolated/ marginalised.

They deviated from the ideal womanly role of a wife and mother, and were associated with loneliness, uselessness or moral threat.

Anglo-Catholic views on the afterlife during the Victorian era

Emphasised the reality of the soul's continued existence and journey after death, the importance of prayers for the dead and the role of good works and obedience in preparing for the afterlife.

view on beauty

Beauty was seen as a symbol of virtue and morality- healthy complexation = sign of inner purity and a virtuous life.

Beauty was seen as a commodity, particularly for women seeking marriage and social advancement.

Original sin

Original sin - the condition of sinfulness that all humans share, inherited from Adam and Eve due to the Fall.

The fall of man

The fall of man/the Fall - the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience (Adam + Eve)

As froth on the face of the deep and genesis

Allusion to Genesis: the Earth is described to have this line, "on the face of the deep", before God began his work of creation; the line referring to primordial waters (the vast, chaotic waters that existed before the creation of the world)

Poetic influences-

Nature- Rossetti speculated in an 1884 letter. “idle liberty to prowl all alone about my grandfather’s cottage-grounds.” 

Fostered the attention to the minute in nature that marks her poetry, also observing the corruptibility and morality that became keynotes in her work.