Color: A Poem

by Christina Rossetti, Mary Teichman (Illustrator)

An introduction to poetry presents the verse of a leading nineteenth-century poet, accompanied by color illustrations that help young readers learn to identify basic colors by matching them with commonplace objects such as roses, pears, grass, and clouds.

Genres: Poetry, Picture Books, Storytime, Childrens

38 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Christina 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.

Reviews

[Ailish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so sure about rhyming “violet” and “twilight”

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a simple introduction to the wonderful world of color that features Rossetti's poem, highlighted by Laeetitia Devernay's bold, brilliant graphics.

My version is the traditional hardback picture book, though this would make a terrific board book.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely poem and love the bold illustrations.

[Terresa Wellborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well done picture book pairing Rossetti's poetry with whimsical illustrations. The rhyming text is ideal for toddler, preK, and early elementary ages, encouraging a conversation about color.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosetti’s poem, beautifully illustrated

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It tries too hard to rhyme. The illustrations are fun with the change of the prominent color for each layout.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rossetti's poetry paired with whimsical illustrations that will engage children in a conversation about color.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely illustrated title of Christina Rossetti’s poem “Color”. Devernay is a graphic artist and her big bold illustrations will be very appropriate for young eyes.
Love Devernay graphic style.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Automatic bonus points here for figuring out what to do with the impossible-to-rhyme color orange! The poem is simple and sweet, and the illustrations are pleasant. the kids were only able to guess one of the "what is" questions (grass, in case you were wondering...), but they liked it, regardless. Good way to introduce both color awareness and poetry.