Rossetti AO3

Her early life

She was the sister of the painter & poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti & the youngest child of Gabriele Rossetti & was home educated by an intellectual, liberal family. She was an avid reader of romantic & gothic poetry & fiction. She suffered a mental breakdown at 14 & had periods of poor mental & physical health throughout her life, as did her father which was destabilising in a Victorian society. At 20 she contributed 7 poems to the Pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ. Her family fell into financial difficulty due to her father’s poor health in 1853 & her father died in 1954 leading her to enter on her life work of companionship to her mother, devotion to her religion & writing her poetry.

Rossetti & religion

She was a firm High Church Anglican (Anglo-Catholic) and specifically believed in Tractarianism as her faith. She broke her engagement to artist James Collinson in 1850 because he’d become a Roman Catholic & she rejected her engagement to Charles Bagot Cayley in 1864 due to her being troubled by his lack of religious faith.

Rossetti & Graves’ Disease

She was struck by this in 1871 & it was a thyroid disorder that marred her appearance & left her life in danger. However, sustained by religious faith, she accepted her affliction and continued to publish poetry. She was considered a possible successor to Alfred Lord Tennyson as poet laureate but her declining health (she had also been diagnosed with breast cancer) & her position as a women prevented her from receiving the title.

Rossetti’s work with fallen women

She worked at a refuge for prostitutes (fallen women) from the ages of 29-40 in St Mary Magdalene’s Penitentiary and gained first hand experiences of how they were treated and received by Victorian society - most likely shunned or outcasted for a loss of morals and virtue. Victorian society often offered sexist and hypocritical treatment to premarital romance - a theme she explores and criticises in her poetry.

Critical receptions of her

Rossetti received much more criticism than Ibsen as a female writer, she was accused of being ‘petty’ and too ‘melancholy’ and using her emotions as a woman which discounted her deep love for family and for God which inspired her work. Male critics were often patronising towards her & didn’t take her poetry seriously & many found her work disappointing & offered it dismissive sexist criticisms. However many more modern feminist critics have highly praised her work & her brother greatly admired it.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Rossetti is often linked to this movement as her brothers William & Dante were founding members of it in 1848. The Brotherhood was a group of young male artists who rejected the stultified values of the Royal Academy & the established art world. They focused on history, religion, the contemporary world & an enthusiasm for medievalism which was linked to the Victorian interest in the Middle Ages & chivalry & Arthurian legends etc. They often took on moral perspectives like the fallen woman. Rossetti was invited to become a member & rejected it but explored many of the same themes in her poems.

The Woman Question

This refers to the de bates around the status of women in the 19th century. Rossetti explores the woman question by creating characters close to literary types, like the fallen woman, the abandoned woman, the beloved but she was not a feminist and believed men & women had different societal roles. The question of women’s roles was fiercely debated in the 19th century in discussion groups, the press, parliament & scientific circles & women pushed for greater recognition & equality.

Traditional Victorian gender roles

Stated the woman’s rightful place as in the home & the domestic sphere where they were subordinate to men as wives, daughters and mothers. Society was constructed legally, politically & economically to enforce female dependence on men. Men were commonly represented in society as being driven by their mind or intellectual strength & felt they were equipped to govern. Whereas women were defined by their sexuality, perceived to be irrational, sensitive & dutiful & expected to fit into the social mould crafted by men.

The legal rights of Victorian women

Before 1882, once a woman married she lost her independent legal rights & became one with her husband & did everything under his direction. After married a woman was under the complete supervision of her husband & wasn’t allowed control of her own possessions or her own body as refusal of sex was legal grounds for annulment. The Married Woman’s Property Act came into effect in 1870 which allowed woman to keep earnings or property acquired after marriage & a further act in 1882 allowed them to retain what they already owned after marriage.

Fallen women in Victorian society

A fallen woman was seen as a prostitute or a woman who had had sex before marriage, whether voluntary or forced. It was a woman who transgressed Victorian sexual norms & the fall was associated with a downward spiral that led to loss of social position, isolation, ruin and death. In the 2nd half of the 19th century many middle class philanthropists joined the cause to ‘rescue’ women from prostitution & held ‘meetings’ for women & provided support of free accommodation like refuges of penitentiaries. These were mostly run using Christian principles & aimed to rehabilitate women through religious & moral instruction & practical training for work. These could accomodate1286 women & girls. However, they solely focused on regulating female sexual behaviour, not male actions.

Victorian beliefs about death

A deep fascination about death existed in the Victorian era, due to the high mortality rate, which was shown by elaborate & long mourning rituals and open discussions about death & the afterlife. There was a strict social etiquette of mourning - wearing black for a period was mandatory - and many different superstitions about how to stay connected with the dead. Widows were encouraged to mourn for longer while widowers were encouraged to remarry earlier. People created mementoes like jewellery made from the deceased's hair to feel connected to their loved ones.

The idea of soul sleep

This was a Tractarian belief that the soul entered a ‘waiting time’ between death and the reunion of the soul and the body on the last day. It entered a suspended state outside of time & awareness of the eternal reward granted on the last day. This concept allows death to be seen as a biblical metaphor for the sleep and relief the soul reaches once it leaves the land of the living.

Dante’s muse & inspiration for goblin market

Rossetti’s brother Dante’s wife and muse was named Lizzie Siddell who was also an accomplished artist and poet & the only woman to exhibit alongside the Pre-Raphaelites. However she became addicted to opium & died from a an overdoes in 1862, which can be seen as possible inspiration for or the context behind Rossetti’s poem Goblin market.

Christina & Maria

Maria was Rossetti’s sister with whom she had a very close and supportive relationship with. Goblin Market was dedicated to Maria and may have been influenced by their sisterly relationship. Maria also became an Anglican nun, choosing not to marry like her sister, which may link to Rossetti’s Soeur Louise - she may have wanted to understand what her sister was giving up. They also both worked with fallen women together.

Rossetti’s opinion on the societal position of women

She was acutely aware of the advantages faced by 19th century women and of the pressure put on them to conform to the expected standards. She was also especially concerned with the welfare of women to sought to leave prostitution - fallen women. However she was not a feminist. Poet Augusta Webster wrote to her in the 1870s asking her to support a campaign which aimed to give women the right to vote & Rossetti refused as she believed men & women were created by God as fundamentally different & because of this they should have different responsibilities & rights.

Victorian interpretation of women in literature

Victorian male writers either presented women as the angelic maid or the wicked temptress, cementing gender stereotypes. Patmore’s poem Angel in the House published in 1854 described the ideal woman as charming, unselfish, completely dedicated to her husband & children, weak, pure, childlike and in need of male protection. Rossetti’s poems challenges these typical expectations.