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The Poetry of Christina Rossetti
A collection of Christina Rossetti's finest poetry including Goblin Market.
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First published September 24, 2013
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About the author
Christina Rossetti
336 books559 followersChristina Georgina Rossetti, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote lyrical religious works and ballads, such as "Up-hill" (1861).
Frances Polidori Rossetti bore this most important women poet writing in nineteenth-century England to Gabriele Rossetti. Despite her fundamentally religious temperament, closer to that of her mother, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father.
Dante made seemingly quite attractive if not beautiful but somewhat idealized sketches of Christina as a teenager. In 1848, James Collinson, one of the minor pre-Raphaelite brethren, engaged her but reverted to Roman Catholicism and afterward ended the engagement.
When failing health and eyesight forced the professor into retirement in 1853, Christina and her mother started a day school, attempting to support the family, but after a year or so, gave it away. Thereafter, a recurring illness, diagnosed as sometimes angina and sometimes tuberculosis, interrupted a very retiring life that she led. From the early 1860s, she in love with Charles Cayley, but according to her brother William, refused to marry him because "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian." Milk-and-water Anglicanism was not to her taste. Lona Mosk Packer argues that her poems conceal a love for the painter William Bell Scott, but there is no other evidence for this theory, and the most respected scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite movement disputes the dates on which Packer thinks some of the more revealing poems were written.
All three Rossetti women, at first devout members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, were drawn toward the Tractarians in the 1840s. They nevertheless retained their evangelical seriousness: Maria eventually became an Anglican nun, and Christina's religious scruples remind one of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch : as Eliot's heroine looked forward to giving up riding because she enjoyed it so much, so Christina gave up chess because she found she enjoyed winning; pasted paper strips over the antireligious parts of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (which allowed her to enjoy the poem very much); objected to nudity in painting, especially if the artist was a woman; and refused even to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
After rejecting Cayley in 1866, according one biographer, Christina (like many Victorian spinsters) lived vicariously in the lives of other people. Although pretty much a stay-at-home, her circle included her brothers' friends, like Whistler, Swinburne, F.M. Brown, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). She continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer.
Frances Polidori Rossetti bore this most important women poet writing in nineteenth-century England to Gabriele Rossetti. Despite her fundamentally religious temperament, closer to that of her mother, this youngest member of a remarkable family of poets, artists, and critics inherited many of her artistic tendencies from her father.
Dante made seemingly quite attractive if not beautiful but somewhat idealized sketches of Christina as a teenager. In 1848, James Collinson, one of the minor pre-Raphaelite brethren, engaged her but reverted to Roman Catholicism and afterward ended the engagement.
When failing health and eyesight forced the professor into retirement in 1853, Christina and her mother started a day school, attempting to support the family, but after a year or so, gave it away. Thereafter, a recurring illness, diagnosed as sometimes angina and sometimes tuberculosis, interrupted a very retiring life that she led. From the early 1860s, she in love with Charles Cayley, but according to her brother William, refused to marry him because "she enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian." Milk-and-water Anglicanism was not to her taste. Lona Mosk Packer argues that her poems conceal a love for the painter William Bell Scott, but there is no other evidence for this theory, and the most respected scholar of the Pre-Raphaelite movement disputes the dates on which Packer thinks some of the more revealing poems were written.
All three Rossetti women, at first devout members of the evangelical branch of the Church of England, were drawn toward the Tractarians in the 1840s. They nevertheless retained their evangelical seriousness: Maria eventually became an Anglican nun, and Christina's religious scruples remind one of Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot's Middlemarch : as Eliot's heroine looked forward to giving up riding because she enjoyed it so much, so Christina gave up chess because she found she enjoyed winning; pasted paper strips over the antireligious parts of Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon (which allowed her to enjoy the poem very much); objected to nudity in painting, especially if the artist was a woman; and refused even to go see Wagner's Parsifal, because it celebrated a pagan mythology.
After rejecting Cayley in 1866, according one biographer, Christina (like many Victorian spinsters) lived vicariously in the lives of other people. Although pretty much a stay-at-home, her circle included her brothers' friends, like Whistler, Swinburne, F.M. Brown, and Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). She continued to write and in the 1870s to work for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. She was troubled physically by neuralgia and emotionally by Dante's breakdown in 1872. The last 12 years of her life, after his death in 1882, were quiet ones. She died of cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 25, 2024
Always a fan of Christina Rosetti. Especially her poetic storytelling. She really excelled in her fantastical poems thanks to her beautiful imagery.
June 13, 2022
I've read Goblin Market before but this was the first time I read any of her other poems.
March 23, 2020
Ma ausalt pole suur luulesõber, kuigi see aasta on juba kahtlaselt palju luuleraamatuid kirja saanud, ja seda raamatut ma ka ei plaaninud algusest lõpuni läbi lugeda. Ma tahtsin vaid lugeda Rossetti tuntuimat luuletust "Goblin Market". Õhtu oli hiline, lõin raamatu lahti ja hakkasin valju häälega lugema. Mul aitab luuletuse kõvasti ette lugemine paremini tabada luuletuste riimi ja rütmi. Ühel hetkel hakkas hääl väsima ja ta muutus vaiksemaks ja vaiksemaks... Kui luuletus läbi sai, hakkasin ma raamatut kinni panema, kui mees palus, et ma jätkaksin. Tal kinnitas, et luuletuste sisu teda ei huvita, aga et see vaikne hääletoon on taustaks mõnus. Kehitasin õlgu ja kuna midagi uut ma ette võtta ei viitsinud, lugesin edasi. Niisiis saigi see luulekogu meie niiöelda unejutuks. Minu väsitasid need luuletused ära ja abikaasat uinutas minu veidi monotoonne hääl.
Rossetti luuletused on usust ja armastusest. Seetõttu need mind ka eriti ei kõnetanud, kuigi tehniliselt olid kõik poeemid väga, väga head. Ja kuna Rossetti on üks olulisemaid inglise naispoeete, siis tundus see ka märtsikuusse paslik lugemine.
Rossetti luuletused on usust ja armastusest. Seetõttu need mind ka eriti ei kõnetanud, kuigi tehniliselt olid kõik poeemid väga, väga head. Ja kuna Rossetti on üks olulisemaid inglise naispoeete, siis tundus see ka märtsikuusse paslik lugemine.
March 19, 2022
21st-century readers judge Christina Rossetti harshly for her religious fanaticism, melancholy, and "trite" verse. I think modern readers and scholars do not give her nearly enough credit. While I can't deny her (occasionally tedious) fanaticism and melancholy, she is a wonderful poet. Her deceptively simple poetry reveals universal truths about life, love, and, in particular, grief. Rossetti's precise language predates the sparse style considered cutting-edge in the 20th century. Rossetti's brother was a Pre-Raphaelite painter. She "paints" with her verse through her lush description of flowers, animals, and colors, so I consider Christina, not just Gabriel, foundational in the Pre-Raphaelite school.
A poem like "Remember" is a perfect poem. "In an Artist's Studio" and "No, Thank You, John" are fantastic, arch, and surprisingly fiery poems.
A poem like "Remember" is a perfect poem. "In an Artist's Studio" and "No, Thank You, John" are fantastic, arch, and surprisingly fiery poems.
June 16, 2020
I truly enjoyed some of her poems, yet I was unable to connect with most of them. Christina Rossetti is a good poet but this compilation of poems doesn't really speak to me. I read a few of her poems several times for I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything...I was determined to finish this book even though I wasn't getting much pleasure from it.
I always give poetry books a second chance, ergo, I will definitely read this book again. I may read it again soon, but next time I will not read more than two or three poems a day; this approach may change my view of Christina's work. I will make sure to update my review if that happens.
I always give poetry books a second chance, ergo, I will definitely read this book again. I may read it again soon, but next time I will not read more than two or three poems a day; this approach may change my view of Christina's work. I will make sure to update my review if that happens.
August 18, 2020
The Rossetti family fascinates me and I read everything I can find written by or about them. I did enjoy the poems in this book, although Goblin Market is still my favorite. Women in the arts throughout history is another of my well-loved themes and I always find something inspiring in their work.
January 29, 2020
Similar to my review of the Keats poetry collection, I don’t think this genre is the right one for me. I enjoyed this one more than the Keats book, but it may have just been because I found it faster to get through. I don’t really have much else to say on the matter.
July 16, 2025
Respectable from a classic poetry perspective, however I did pick this book up after only having read goblin market and I really thought she was a queer poet—turns out she just uses “gay” to mean happy very frequently—my bad!!!
March 26, 2018
My cat is her namesake. What more can I say?
March 23, 2020
Pretty good!
March 25, 2022
One of my new favorite poets!
December 31, 2024
It took me forever to get through this collection, but I really enjoyed it :)
February 20, 2020
This collection has the poems:
Goblin Market
Winter: My Secret
An Apple Gathering
Let Me Go
When I Am Dead, My Dearest
The First Day
Spring
Remember
Noble Sisters
No, Thank You, John
A Triad
May
Love from the North
A Peal of Bells
Maude Clare
Fata Morgana
Christmas Eve
Song (Two Doves Upon The Selfsame Branch)
A Birthday
In the Bleak Midwinter
Echo
A Pause of Thought
Cousin Kate
Another Spring
Dream Land
At Home
Winter Rain
A Summer Wish
Goblin Market
Winter: My Secret
An Apple Gathering
Let Me Go
When I Am Dead, My Dearest
The First Day
Spring
Remember
Noble Sisters
No, Thank You, John
A Triad
May
Love from the North
A Peal of Bells
Maude Clare
Fata Morgana
Christmas Eve
Song (Two Doves Upon The Selfsame Branch)
A Birthday
In the Bleak Midwinter
Echo
A Pause of Thought
Cousin Kate
Another Spring
Dream Land
At Home
Winter Rain
A Summer Wish
September 21, 2020
The images she conjures in her poetic tales is really beautiful.
November 18, 2020
Dreamy, elegant renaissance-esque poetry with Italian and British influence.
October 28, 2025
A very nice collection about loss and hope and everything in between. Christina’s words are profound and she writes softly about faith, love, sacrifice and also, death.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews