Learning Not to Be First: the Life of Christina Rossetti

by Kathleen Jones

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.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Poetry, History, Biography Memoir

Hardcover

First published October 20, 2011

About the author

I was brought up on a remote hill farm in the English Lake District. I started writing as a teenager, publishing small pieces in local magazines and newspapers, fanzines and teenage mags such as ‘Jackie’. I married very early and started travelling the world with my husband, had four children, worked in broadcasting in the middle east, and became a single parent. Back in the UK I went to university as a mature student, and wrote my first book which I was lucky enough to have published by Bloomsbury. Since then I’ve managed to (almost!) make a living as a writer, teaching creative writing pt-time to pay the bills.

I’ve probably made it sound easy, but it wasn’t. I know I’ve been incredibly lucky to be published and to be able to share what I love doing most with other people. Now I live with a sculptor who is working in Italy and so I spend as much time there as I can. It’s a bit of a scramble sometimes - a crazy life - but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Reviews

[Susan Liston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read so much about the Pre-Raphaelites but I knew very little about Christina as she's always just sort of in the background. I hadn't read any of her poetry. I guess I hadn't formed much of an opinon of her at all. So this was quite a revelation, I wasn't expecting to feel so emotional about her. Such a mind and heart so completely restricted by her circumstances, both technically and in her own mind. The poem she wrote when she was dying broke my heart.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know much about Christina Rossetti until I read this: I'd read some of her poetry including the spectacular and disturbing Goblin Market, but her life had been rolled in with Dante Gabriel and the Pre-Raphaelites. This is an excellent antidote. While Jones covers the Pre-Raphaelites (since they all had an impact on Christina's sheltered life) she does focus as much as possible on both Christina the woman and Christina the poet. There are ample samples of both her imaginative work and also domestic letters and a sense of scholarship that eschews some of the more popular theories about Rossetti.

Most interesting, is the extent to which Christina's reputation has been conditioned by our and historical views of women's writings: as Jones points out, women who write in a so-called 'feminine' style (simply, directly, about emotions, nature etc) are only ever rated as 'women writers' who cannot compare with real (i.e. male) poets. On the other hand, an 'intellectual' woman such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a contemporary of Rossetti's, are tainted by a kind of muscularity in their writing ("falsetto muscularity" in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's memorable and disdainful phrase). Jones puts Rossetti back into her rightful place as a creative artist, despite her gender.

Ultimately this is a hugely sad story of a Victorian woman who loves twice but never marries because she cannot bear to marry a man whose religious faith and belief is less than hers, and so she goes through life, alone, lonely, frustrated. The violence and sexuality which she struggles so hard to conquer erupt from her writing. Reading her life in 2007, really brings home the extent to which so many female C19th maladies may have been psychosomatic, the result of such intense and life-long repression.

Altogether this is a well-written, sensitive and revealing book: and if it sends more people (back) to Christina Rossetti's work, then it will have done it's job extremely well.

[Kathleen Jones]

This book has just been re-released on Kindle, fully illustrated.

Christina Rossetti was one of the most important poets of the 19th century, and one of four women who were, at that time, writing at (or even above) the level of their male contemporaries; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson. There are considerable links - for instance, when Emily Dickinson read Christina's Goblin Market and went on to write her own Goblin poems; and Christina's own poems influenced by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Christina's poetry is a fascinating mix of the religious and the erotic and this division reflects the conflicts within her own personality between human love (she rejected two men she loved passionately because of religious differences) and the love of god. She was also at the centre of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and often featured in the paintings of her brother Dante Gabriel and his friends. Holman Hunt used her face for the face of Christ in 'The Light of the World'.

[Emilyann Wert · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.
I love Christina Rossetti dearly. This biography is not it. Dry and predictable, more concerned with disproving other theories. Oh, and Anglican pietism was much more than repressed female sexuality. *Yawn* Such a boring take on such a fascinating woman and Christian.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this back in college, when I was just discovering the wonder of Christina Rossetti. It came to mind yesterday while reading Denis Haack's blog ( http://blog4critique.blogspot.com ) and I flipped through it again a bit. Recommended- a wonderful life story and consideration of the heart and mind of this sweet poet.

[Miriam]

A good biography of a highly interesting woman.

[Helin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my dissertation and I must say that Jones has done an excellent job at providing so many details and instances of Christina's life that I feel like hardly anything is missed! Her writing style is easy to read and thought-provoking so it didn't bore me for even an instant. I enjoy analysing Rossetti's poetry and find her to be a very interesting poetess with an air of mystery about her that remains obscure.

[gabrielle remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

based on my updates can you tell i did a research essay about christina rossetti