Rossetti Context

victorian pessimism

often viewed as injecting english lit with a greater sense of pessimism after the generally more optimistic romantic period

disdain for world in anticipation of afterlife

contemptus mundi

death victorian england

more frequent - poor public health, disease spreading (industrial rev attracted ppl to cities, factories occupied lot of land - overcrowded)

darwinian theory

1859 ‘on the origin of species’

pivotal moment in victorian intellectual life, challenging traditional religious view of creation + the natural order

the oxford movement

• began 1830s, reached london 1840s, movement of High Church. High Anglicanism - very close to Roman Catholicism in doctrine

• john keble + henry newman, among others, series of pamphlets called ‘tract for the times’, restoration of religious rituals

philosophy of the oxford movement?

called tractarianism. argued for reinstatement of older Christian traditions. belief in importance of liturgy & ceremonial worship.

rossetti’s religion

tractarian (high anglican)

accused by WM of being ‘over-scupulous’ as a Christian

rev dodsworth

in 43 rossetti women began attending services at christ church, albany street

influenced a generation of worshippers, descendant of the oxford movement

tractarianism poetry

vehicle for the expression of divine truth

devotional writing

• a way for women of a theological bent to participate in discussions usually reserved for official, male members of the clergy (roe)

• half of her approx 1200 poems =specifically designated as devotional, remainder refer to Authorised Version of the Bible so often the distinction between secular + devotional is diff

soul sleep

when believers die, soul becomes inert until second coming. suspended animation - neither conscious nor unconscious activity

popularised by John Calvin in his 1542 doctrine Psychopannychia which ironically argued against the idea of soul sleep

anti-catholic?

not strictly - wrote sympathetic sonnet about newman’s conversion to catholicism

however rejected collinson (despite member of christ church, albany street) b/c felt inter-faith marriage was not compatible w her religion

PRB

founded 1848 - Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais. reacted to prevailing academic standards of the Royal Academy, rejected Mannerist artists. sought to revive Italian art pre-Raphael (Quattrocento period)

PRB influence

poetry shares aesthetic and thematic affinities e.g. medievalism, symbolism (particularly religious), natural imagery

rossetti PRB

1850 - poems published in PRB magazine ‘the germ: thoughts towards nature in poetry, literature and art’

pseudo-medieval pen name Ellyn Alleyn only real concession to movement which, guided by spirit of thomas carlyle + arthurian poetry of Tennyson, pined for lost, idealised medieval england

peripheral - all male group, but garnered much critical praise

hellenism

focused on by the Romantics

linda h peterson

‘finest devotional poet of [her] century’

women (property rights) pre-reform

doctrine of coverture - legal identity subsumed by husband’s

women (property rights) 1st legislation

married women’s property act 1870 - keep earnings from own work, inherit up to £200 from next of kin, hold rented property in own name

women (property rights) 2nd legislation

married women’s property act 1882 - legal individuals in eyes of law - could buy, sell, inherit property, enter contracts, be liable for own debts if unmarried

divorce victorian

difficult, expensive. matrimonial causes act 1857 made civil divorce possible but women had to prove both adultery + an additional offense (e.g. cruelty / desertion) - men only had to prove adultery

education reforms for women

forster act 1870 - basic education more accessible to girls. endowed schools act 1869 - expanded academic opportunities. by end of victorian era, women’s literacy rates had risen dramatically, access to higher education improving

contagious diseases acts

64, 66, 69 - targeted women suspected of prostitution - subjected to forced medical examinations + detention

anti-suffrage petition

Mary Ward - formal, public declaration against women’s vote in parliamentary elections

augusta webster letter

explained anti-suffrage petition - suffrage incompatible with Christian doctrine - biblical teaching required women’s subordination to men.

however v. significant caveat - if women’s interests consistently overriden by lack of voting power, could imagine supporting female MPs, mothers in particular would be well-suited to represent / protect interests of women & children

the highest functions

are not IN THIS WORLD open to both sexes

opposed women’s university education

‘the highest functions are not in this world open to both sexes’

highgate

1859 - st. mary magdelene penitentiary for FW - charitable institution for reclamation of ‘fallen’ women

rossetti’s duality

• poetry often defined as characteristically dichotomous or susceptible to multiple labyrinthian interpretations

• gladiator couplet - dictated at 5, metrical meeting of the mundane & the extraordinary (contains in embryo stuff of CR’s later work)

isobel armstrong

• doubleness of Victorian’s women’s poetry due to repressed social circumstance

• ‘perhaps because…confronted with a contradictory experience’

prostitution victorian

‘the great social evil’. london police estimated 2,000, society for suppression of vice estimated 80,000, plausible estimate = 70,000. money / desperation. legal age of consent = 12 early victorian period (since 1275). 1875 - 13, 1885 - 16.

angel in the house

victorian ideal of womenhood originating in Coventry Patmore’s narrative poem of same name - selfless, submissive, morally pure, domestic servitude. no autonomy / public identity

charles cayley

english linguist, translated dante into metre of the original.

abstracted & absorbed by his work - CR idealised his qualities of reserve and dutiful application

studied under Gabriele Rossetti Kings College. early 1860s in love w him. proposed 1866, she rejected due to assertion she had ‘probed his faith, and found it either strictly wrong, or woefully defective’. remained close friends until his death.

james collinson

student w. Holman Hunt & Dante Gabriel Rossetti. devout Christian, converted to Anglicanism, engagement 1848-1849. reverted to Catholicism 1850. resigned from PRB when believed it was bringing Catholicism into disrepute.

william michael - ‘blow from which she did not fully recover for years’

john brett

brief relationship 1850s, ‘No Thank You, John’ supposedly about him. William Michael writes about John & her lack of interest in him. penniless student.

1830

rossetti born

siblings

Dante Gabriel - distinguished himself as one of foremost poets / painters; William Michael - prolific literary critic, editor, memoirist of PR movement

Maria Francesca - joined sisterhood of all saints, margaret street 1873

gabriele rossetti

academic, prof of Italian at KC, Neapolitan exilie whose Republican views had forced him to flee Italy for England 1824

rossetti home

• charlotte street near portland place. enjoyed visits from gabriele’s fellow exiles - highly politicised atmosphere

• anglo-italian - spoke english w mother, italian w father

gaetano polidori

• country house buckinghamshire.

• former secretary to italian poet vittorio alfieri & translator of john milton - encouraged lit talent, published 1st collection of poetry (verses: dedicated to her mother)

• doted on CR, said to resemble gm, anna maria pierce

rossetti temperament

childhood nickname ‘vivace’

like DG - father called them ‘two storms’ vs. ‘two calms’ W & M. tantrums & fractious behaviour, fought to subdue passionate temper.

William: ‘one might readily have supposed that she would develop into a woman of expansive heart… what came to pass was quite the contrary’.

as adult, considered to be over scrupulous & excessively restrained

frances rossetti

• read to her - favoured religious texts e.g. John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ - influenced devotional poetry

• wished her children ‘would be distinguished through intellect’

• maintained common place book containing selected passages from favourite poets & writers, to which children also contributed

• taught them to take pride in uncle polidori, byron’s travelling physician, author of the vampyre (1819)

gabriele rossetti health collapsed

became ill 1840s, stroke 1849

following badly received, infamous publications on dante- insisted great poet’s works had been written in secret anti-papal code

virtually blind, unable to work. christina remained at home as companion to ailing father, died 54

1845 collapse

breakdown - began to suffer from various physical maladies that would plague rest of life

biographer jan marsh - diagnosis at time, angina pectoris = unlikely. points to 2nd hand report of medical notes. doctor: ‘more or less out of her mind…I believe a kind of religious mania’

morbidity

episodes of serious illness throughout life (e.g. graves disease early 70s, breast cancer 1891 - died 1894). William suggests morbidity attributable to ever-present prospect of early death > innate disposition

‘almost constant and often sadly-smitten invalid’

key deaths

• maria death from cancer at 49 in 1876

• dante gabriel deteriorating mental + physical health, claimed by depression as polidori. prescribed chloral & morphia didn’t help mental state - after minor stroke + kidney faliure, died 1882 in Kent

• 1883 death of charles cayley

• 1886 - frances death (death quite a blow, closer to her than any person in her life)

graves disease

early 70s. malfunction of thyroid gland, symptoms weight gain, goitre, protruding eyes, mood changes.

WM informs us his sister lost her good looks. joking references to ‘fat poetess’ cannot conceal pain of transformation

crimean war

1854 - volunteered to join Florence Nightingale’s nurses but was turned down

masectomy

1892, performed in own home

woolf

notion that CR (unmarried, religious, relative social isolation) → ‘an instinctive poet’. ‘saw the world from the same angle always’, never ‘developed very much’

critical reception (victorian + immediate posthumous)

respected, not ranked as highly as Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Overshadowed by DG

critical reception (20thc)

• became subject of freudian & psychoanalytic criticism, especially GM.

• feminist critics -began to view her as symbol of repressed female genius - uncover ‘real’ rossetti, focusing on unfilfilled passions / religious asceticism.

• rehabilitation of CR in 70s & 80s permitted re-evaluation - late 80s & 90s saw unprecedented no. of bio & crit pubs on her

madwoman in the attic

1979 - discussed GM in terms of female resistance + empowerment

playboy goblin market

1973 - erotic (undertones) emphasised by illustrations by Kinuko Craft

john ruskin

bemusing warning to dante: ‘your sister should exercise herself in the severest commonplace of meter until she can write as the public like’, ‘she must have the Form first’ - odd, as form is particular feature of CR’s work