This Day in Literary History (Christina Rossetti, Victorian Poet and Devotional Writer, Dies)

Dec. 29, 1894—Weakened by a recurrence of breast cancer on top of the ailments that plagued her for most of her life, poet and devotional writer Christina Rossetti died at age 64 in London.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I have frequently quoted from this Victorian frequently over the years—even though, unlike most other writers featured here, I discovered her on my own, well after my formal education ended.

When I did, I was astonished to discover that her Complete Poems—over 1,100, with approximately 900 published in her lifetime—ran to a hefty 1,300 pages.

As I considered her work and her life, I was struck by several similarities with Emily Dickinson. 

Even the most seemingly significant difference between the two might not be as substantial as it seems at first: Although Rossetti’s religious orientation was Anglo-Catholic while Dickinson rejected the Calvinism of her New England ancestors, both pondered in their work, for want of a better term, the ultimate—i.e., the presence (or lack of it) of God, the possibility of a hereafter.

It turns out that I am hardly the only reader who has drawn parallels between the two poets. Others have pointed out these similarities:

*Each was born in December 1830;

*Each developed a reputation as a spinster/recluse;

*Each, when meeting others, did so within their homes, usually facilitated by their charismatic older brother;

*Each devoted much of their work in their home to looking after their fathers;

*Each’s sexuality—or suppression of it—has fanned intense scholarly interest, despite the lack of much documentation to justify many conclusions;

*Each seems to have suffered from a mysterious ailment or set of them, which has also produced a small cottage industry of studies;

*Each wrote poetry in a deceptively simple style that cloaks complicated reflections on resignation, loss, and mortality.

The youngest child of Italian immigrants to Great Britain, Christina came from one of the most artistically accomplished families of her era. Her father was a poet and Dante scholar; sister Maria, books on Dante, religious instruction, and Italian grammar and translation; brother William, art and literary criticism; and brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the foremost poets and painters of his time, as a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In her youth, Christina could beat her siblings in rapidly dashing off exquisite poems, and her striking looks—particularly the pale complexion, large eyes, and long uncurled hair (as seen in the attached image, created by her brother Dante)—made her one of the initial go-to models of the Pre-Raphaelites.

But in her mid-teens, she suffered a collapse in health. Over time, as she became more intensely devotional, she spurned at least two suitors who did not meet the spiritual standard she desired for a husband.

Much of her poetry inextricably intertwines Biblical imagery with her own spontaneous melodic voice—a style that reached a peak of sorts with the famous hymn, “In the Bleak Midwinter.” In art as in life, she was confessional and self-abasing to a fault.

But she was valued so much by contemporaries that she was a serious contender for the post of British poet laureate after the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Her rapidly declining health at this point closed off any chance of achieving that distinction.)