The Complete Poems

by Christina Rossetti, Betty Sue Flowers (Introduction)

Rossetti is unique among Victorian poets for the sheer range of her subject matter and the variety of her verse form. This collection brings together fantasy poems, such as Goblin Market, and terrifyingly vivid verses for children, love lyrics and sonnets, and the vast body of her devotional poetry. Rossetti's poems weave connections between love and death, triumph and loss, heavenly joys and earthly pleasures. The directness and clarity of her lyrics still have the power to startle us with their truth and beauty.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Victorian, 19th Century, Literature, British Literature, Fiction

1312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1862

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

[Liz Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
.....Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.”
This is the poem I want to be read over my body during my Viking funeral.
How had I never come across this wonderful poet before reading the Penguin Little Black Classics edition? She wrote so beautifully and magnificently, that I am embarrassed for never having read her. Visual imagery? She's got it! Emotion and heart? She's got it! Lust and love? She's got it! A poem about seduction and repentance? She's got it! Even a rejection/shot down poem? She's got it! She is the poet that everyone can and should read.

[Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all of the poets of the Victorian Era, it is my humble opinion that Christina Georgina Rossetti is arguably one of the very best. In fact, I believe her only rival to be Emily Dickinson. I have spent the last two months carefully reading and studying Christina Rossetti's poetry, and am amazed at her ability to craft a poem full of visual imagery, emotion, and so much meaning. She does not hide her feelings or her thoughts on subjects such as life, death, spirituality, love, betrayal, lust, jealousy, childhood, nature, and so forth. It is all right there, in each line, and each stanza. This Penguin Classics edition contains all of her known works, and a prolific body of work it is too. The notes are well done and provide both a historical and biographical context for the poems, as well as providing background information to make the poem even more accessible to modern readers. In my opinion, with the exception of Ms. R.W. Crump's three-volume scholarly edition of Rossetti's works (1979-1990), this is the definitive edition of Christina Rossetti's poetry, and should be on every serious reader's bookshelf.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew Rossetti largely through "Goblin Market" and "In the Bleak Midwinter." Her complete poems include gems and the rougher work of her unpublished material. Yet, I love seeing the poet's raw process, even the uncut stones. Rossetti's depth of spirituality and imagery entrances me, and she speaks with the clarity of a contemporary, though the air of her time and place still breathes through her work. She's become one of my favorite poets, and I'll be returning to this volume in the future.

[The Bibliophile Doctor · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading I had hard time abstaining myself from reading more from Rossetti and she kept her prose imposed through other works too... Her poetry mostly seems concentrated on death, pain, satire, lust, sisterhood and gothic even though I have mentioned them randomly you will find I'm bit right about it.
My personal favorites are
Remember
After death
Song
Better resurrection
Up hill

[Nikita Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christina Rossetti's work has captured my heart for years and this book is the essential Rossetti for any poetry lover. Her words are full in ways that are indescribable.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow she is truly unmatched in Victorian poetry. Wow!! And her advent and winter poems - wonderful.

[Monique]

Wonderful memories of reading this book, cover to cover. May be time seek it out and open it once more.

[Skye Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Can peach renew lost bloom,
Or violet lost perfume,
Or sullied snow turn white as overnight?
Man cannot compass it, yet never fear:
The leper Naaman
Shows what God will and can;
God Who worked there is working here;
Wherefore let shame, not gloom, betinge thy brow,
God Who worked then is working now."

Beautiful, thoughtful, faith-filled poetry to lift any heart and spirit. Ms. Rosetti's words filled me with both with reverence and delight in God's love. The perfect Sunday read on a chilly Winter's day.

[Leonor Lopes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's just perfectly written and so few poems actually are. It always finds some sort of end or explanation, which few poems do. It's wonderful—she's an amazing writer not just poet. I find her religious poems, which are many, the best though I am not they represent not just god and religion but the nature of the human being. Genuinely genius.

[Cara Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous poetry, timeless and frequently revisited. Christina Rossetti writes so beautifully and captures so many different feelings and experiences so well. Find myself coming back to her often.

[Toast · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her poetry is quite sublime. And, quite Gothic. You'll be surprised how much you actually know eg In the bleak midwinter. Her short fiction has a strong Austen slant. This was one tough talented cookie check out the portrait on the cover if you don't believe me.
The edition I had had some wonderful editorial notes and essays covering her poetry, her religious prose, her family and the whole PRB that influenced her work. But, a very strong case can be made for her as an independent thinker with firm litertary ideas. She seems forever overshadowed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her brothers, her father, the PRB and by her own lack of confidence, dare I say belief, in her own ability. But, actually this woman could write and write well.
Toast

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always described poetry as the greatest medium for transmuting mental phenomena into words while retaining something more than just symbols, even thought most poetry I unhesitatingly consider to be some of the worst writing in human history. That being said, Christina Rossetti has the written the most best poetry of anyone I've yet encountered (excluding Poe, who, though talented beyond his credit, is, after all, Romantic in the pejorative sense of more often placating his audience's feelings rather that trying to express something sublime (as Longinus would say.)

[Mie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have only read the poem "Goblin Market" in this, but I liked that poem. I am not sure I fully understand the poem, but it is a nice, sweet story and it has definately made me curious about her other writings

[Carolyn Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up reading Rossetti poems in nearly all of my literature books in school. While I wouldn't just sit down and devour the entire compendium at one time, this is good poetry and easy to read and analyze.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goblin Market is of course one of the great 19th Century poems. Creepy, gothic, sensual, marvelous.

[Sannie Hald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only read the poem 'Goblin Market' but I am definitely going to read other poems as well. This isn't my first encounter with Rossetti

[paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

can’t even bring myself to explain how much i love rossetti. would tattoo some of these lines on my forehead if i’m being honest.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve had this huge book on my shelves for at least twelve years. Time to read it!

I enjoyed it even though poetry is not my thing; Rossetti is one of the more accessible poets. she was certainly prolific! Some of it is a bit twee, esp in regards to children and babies; other portions surprisingly deep, and some downright unreadable unless you happen to know Italian. I don’t, so free pass for me on those ones!

If I was trying to study the poems I don’t know that I would read it at the speed I chose this time— maybe five pages a day for contemplation if I wanted to do a more honest in depth study. I am a little afraid most will blend together for me, since I decided 50 pages a day would be my goal to complete the book in a timely fashion. Maybe that’s one reason not to try and read everything a single author has produced at one time: it is easy to start skimming and not pay attention!

However that is my problem. I’m definitely more comfortable with prose than poetry! Still good to branch out every now and then.

[SaraKat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose this book because I sang a few songs in choir that used some of Rossetti's poems as lyrics. I adored them and thought I'd read some more. As with any poet, I liked some of the poems and disliked others. I ended up loving just a few of the whole poems and lots of short phrases here and there. Many of the poems were repetitive and Rossetti seems to love two themes especially--"God is love" and "I really hope to die soon to go to heaven earlier". Neither topic really grabs me, so many of the poems were just not my cup of tea. I did note that she missed her calling as a meteorologist since so many of her poems were about the seasons. :) But several of them were really great, so there were diamonds in the rough. My favorites were "Remember" and "Echo". And "A Pause of Thought" made me reconsider how well I listen to my loved ones about their unrealistic dreams.

Hope, memory, love:
Hope for fair morn, and love for day,
And memory for the evening grey

[K. Spicka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel disappointed in myself when an author is so iconic, and I want so much to like them, but I just can't quite get there. . .

Rossetti continues to be read for a reason; her poetry goes down easily, and structurally it is well written. It just got a little "samey" for me after a while.

My intention going in was to determine if Rossetti had more to offer my palate than just "Goblin Market," and I believe she does. It was worth finishing this collection to the end to keep finding the poems that stood out (and there were quite a few), but I don't think I'll make my way through the other two volumes.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the metrically most gifted poet- formal poet- that ever lived, or at least, in the last few hundred years.

If you don't believe me, refer to Gerard Manley Hopkins who admired her greatly, a genius in his own right.

(I must admit I find 'The Goblin Market' overrated and far below many of her other works. It saddens me that it seems to overshadow the rest of her work.)

[Jemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy Rossetti's style - her rhyme schemes tend towards asymmetry and even syncopation, and her riffs on and references to folklore and mythology are fascinating, especially when they delve into a sort of narrative progression - but I don't think I was prepared for how much of her work was really overtly aggressively Christian.

[Ophelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christina Rossetti is such a fine artist. Her poems are so vivid and full of imagery, and her language is beautiful and so delightfully lyrical. She can make you feel whatever she wants with just a couple of lines. So, I cannot say much, because I feel too much.

[eren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whereas the poems that I did enjoy I loved there were some I didn’t enjoy because of the fact that I’m not particularly religious so the religious poems didn’t really work for me but if you are religious then you’ll probably love all the poems.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

[Salma · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

Note to self: never buy someone’s completed works again.

[Monosillabe]

omg she was a swiftie

[isabel mary]

Read: ‘Song (When I am dead, my dearest)’, ‘Winter: My Secret’, ‘In an Artist’s Studio’, ‘A Birthday’, ‘Uphill’, ‘Goblin Market’

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't actually read every single poem in this book -- that would take a lot longer than this -- but I've dipped in and out of it. Christina Rossetti's writing is lovely and rich. 'Goblin Market' is probably the best known, or it's the one I knew anyway, and that's a good example of how rich and sensual her writing can be, but the rest of her poetry is definitely worth a look, too.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't actually read the whole thing - just the two volumes with "The Goblin Market" and "The Prince's Progress." I'd never read Christina Rossetti before, and I have to say I really liked her poetry. I'm not sure I enjoy all of the themes she likes to discuss, but I like her style and her subject matter. If you like Victorian poetry, you should try it!