Learning Not To Be First
The Life of Christina Rossetti
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Christina was the youngest of the four Rossetti children, born in England to Italian parents. Although she and her brother, the artist Dante Gabriel, were known as the 'two storms', Christina's passionate nature was curbed in a way that her brother's was not, as she submitted to the social and religious pressures that lay so heavily on Victorian women. Like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, she suffered the tyranny of a loving family. Her sister Maria's influence was described as 'a species of police surveillance', and Christina was always careful never to write anything that would hurt her mother. Often referred to as the 'High Priestess of Pre-Raphaelitism' Christina had a genuine lyric gift that could articulate both the joy of being alive and the bitterness of loss. Her desire for poetic excellence and moral excellence were continually in conflict and her poetry betrays the corrosive effect of this struggle. Christina's deliberate self-effacement, Dante Gabriel's portrayal of her as the meek virgin and William Rossetti's subjective role as editor and interpreter of her work have gradually blotted out the passionate lively spirit who wrote ‘Goblin Market’ – one of the most complex and disturbing poems ever written. Kathleen Jones looks at Christina’s life alongside that of other nineteenth-century women writers – notably Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An outstanding poet of the 19th century, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was the youngest of four children born to Italian parents who settled in England. In this carefully researched and well-crafted biography, Rossetti emerges as a Victorian woman whose rigid notions of propriety and commitment to the Anglican church prevented her from marrying either of the two men she loved. A sister of painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the leader of the pre-Raphaelite group of artists, a bit obvious/oh, I don't know; people might have liked being reminded that Millais and Hunt were part of the gang.gs , Christina was early on exposed to art and literature circles. Quoting liberally from her haunting lyric narratives, British author Jones ( A Glorious Fame ) shows us a woman who lived a constrained and lonely life of self-denial, expressing her anger and passion only in her poetry, which became increasingly devoted to religious themes. This comprehensive biography will interest general readers and scholars alike. Illustrations.