rossetti context

Question 1

preraphelite brotherhood context

Answer 1

By 1848 Christina Rossetti’s brothers Gabriel and William had become disillusioned with contemporary painting. Alongside a small group of other young artists and writers, they set up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (

• she was never a member of the artistic and literary group.
• Refused to have her work read aloud in her absence at its meetings.

members of the group aimed to emulate the technical rigor and emotional sincerity they found in early Italian and Flemish paintings

Question 2

Matrimonial Causes Act, 1878?

Answer 2

• Made is possible for women to seek legal separation from an abusive husband. Allowed legal separation on grounds of adultery, cruelty or desertion.
• Divorce allowing remarriage was therefore, de facto, restricted to the very wealthy, as demanded with complex annulment process or a private bill, both very costly.

Question 3

Married Women’s Property Act, 1870?

Answer 3

provided that wages and property which a wife earned through her own work or inherited would be regarded as her separate property.

Question 4

Rossetti’s view on female suffrage?

Answer 4

At times she used the Biblical idea of a woman’s subordination to a man as a reason for maintaining the status quo, while at others she argued for female representation in parliament and spoke out against the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution.

• In many ways this shows her to be a particularly complex thinker about the position of women in society and it is certainly a concern which she comes back to time and again in her poetry.
• Her views may not always be ‘radical’ as such, but they are usually far from conservative and often questioning, challenging and potentially subversive.

Question 5

When was Rossetti born?

Answer 5

1830

Question 6

what was rossettis family life

Answer 6

• 3 siblings; Maria Francesca, Dante Gabriel and William Michael.
• Dante Gabriel distinguished himself as one of foremost poets and painters of his era; William was prolific act and literary critic, editor and memoirist of the Pre-Raphelite movement.

Question 7

rosettis religion?

Answer 7

• Caught up in Tractarian/Oxford movement (renewal of catholic thought) when it reached London in 1840s, Rossettis shifted from Evangelical to an Anglo-Catholic orientation, and this outlook influenced virtually all of Rossetti’s poetry.

Question 8

Gabriele Rossetti’s (father) health collapsed in 1843?

Answer 8

• Left him virtually blind and unable to work.
• All family, except Dante and Christina, took employment.
• Christina remained at home as a companion to her ailing father.

Question 9

what happened to rosetti in 1845

Answer 9

-collapse in health

– Diagnosed as having a heart condition, but another doctor speculated that she was mentally ill, suffering from a kind of religious mania.

Question 10

James Collison?

Answer 10

-One of the Pre-Raphelite brethren, James Collison, proposed marriage to Rossetti in 1848.

-he converted to high anglicanism to propose to rossetti and she accepted but he reverted back to roman catholicism and she ended the engagement

Question 11

,St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary?

Answer 11

• In early 1859, Rossetti began volunteering at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in Highgate, a charitable institution for the reclamation of ‘fallen’ women.

worked at the Penitentiary from 1859-1870 with former prostitutes, women who had given birth out of wedlock etc., gave them biblical instruction, was known as ‘Sister Christina’, afforded her sympathy for these women and a belief in rehabilitation.

• Influence can be seen in her poems about illicit love, betrayal, and illegitimacy.

Question 12

What was the popular Victorian image of the ideal wife/woman?

Answer 12

An ‘angel in the house’ - she was expected to be devoted and submissive to her husband. The Angel was passive and powerless, meek, charming, graceful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, pious, and above all, pure

Question 13

Where does the phrase ‘Angel in the House’ come from?

Answer 13

Coventry Patmore’s immensely populat poem, in which he holds his angel-wife up as a model for all women. It was published in 1854

Question 14

How was Rossetti involved in this tractitarian movement?

Answer 14

In 1843, Rossetti began attending the newly established Christ Church, on Albany Street in London. This was an active high Anglican church and was considered the leading church of the Tractarian movement

Question 15

Augusta Webster

Answer 15

wrote to Rossetti in the late 1870s asking for her support in a campaign she was involved with, which aimed to give women the right to vote. However, Rossetti refused. In her letter of response she said: “does it not appear as if the Bible was based upon an understood unalterable distinction between men and women, their position, duties privileges?”. To Rossetti, men and women were fundamentally different creatures created by God and should therefore have different responsibilities and rights. (Rossetti did admire Webster’s poetry)

Question 16

find out what characters and narratives the Pre-Raphaelite’s represented in their paintings

Answer 16

drew inspiration from visual art and literature, their work privileged atmosphere and mood over narrative, focusing on medieval subjects , artistic introspection, female beauty, sexual yearning and altered states of consciousness. 19th-century disagreements over whether their art was forward-thinking or retrogressive set a precedent for current critical debates about the extent to which their work should be considered ‘avant-garde’

Question 17

how is her poetry influenced by the preraphelites

Answer 17

-female sexuality

-Like the Pre-Raphaelites, she draws from literary sources of the past. Also present in Rossetti’s poetry is the Pre-Raphaelite obsession with symbols. Rossetti practices word-painting in her poetry, where a word or combination of words can conjure up a strong, clear image. She draws her use of symbols from the medieval period, during which tokens and blazons were common in both art and literature.

Question 18

how was rosetti involved in anglo catholicism

Answer 18

movement that emphasizes the Catholic rather than the Protestant heritage of the Anglican communion. It was the outgrowth of the 19th century Oxford Movement, which sought to renew Catholic thought and practice in the Church of England.

Question 19

what happened to rosetti what she was 14

Answer 19

When Rossetti was 14, she suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Bouts of depression and related illness followed.

Question 20

High Anglicanism

Answer 20

a doctrine and practice within the Church of England emphasizing the Catholic tradition.

Question 21

Which book outlines the symbolism of Victorian floriography?

Answer 21

Les Langue des Fleures (1818)

Question 22

Characteristics of a Petrarchan sonnet?

Answer 22

• written to an idealised female lover, Laura.
• 14 lines, octave and sestet
• rhyme scheme is ABBAABBA CDECDE

Question 23

What evidences Rossetti’s aptitude at sonnets?

Answer 23

bouts-rimes game she began to play in 1847 with Dante and William, where they raced to compose a list of rhyme endings into sonnets, Rossetti often completed in minutes.

Question 24

Outline some of Rossetti’s conflicting feminist views?

Answer 24

• she was in communication with the early feminist Langham Group
• but was against women gaining suffrage because she thought it was unbiblical
• signed the Anti-Suffrage Petition in 1889
• but believed that women should have representation in parliament

Question 25

What were some religious works that influenced Rossetti and what were their themes?

Answer 25

Dante's 'Inferno', her father and her sister were both scholars of Dante so she was familiar, it explores the poet's journey through nine circles of hell guided by Virgil, as an allegory for the soul's progression towards understanding, repentance and redemption. - John Bunyan's 'A Pilgrim's Progress' (1678) depicts the allegorical journey of Christian from his hometown, the "City of Destruction," to the "Celestial City" (heaven). Along the way, Christian faces numerous trials, temptations, and obstacles, representing the struggles of the Christian life - her mother Frances Polidori read this to her

Question 26

Which fictional/fairytale works did Rossetti read (as part of the wider Victorian interest in medieval fairytales)

Answer 26

- The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser (1598), supernatural creatures and embodies the idealised virtues of knights and their quests, all within a fairy-tale-like world - 'Fairy Tales' by the Brothers Grimm (1812) - The Fairy Mythology by Thomas Keightley (1850), provided an analysis of fairy lore/myths

Question 27

What is Tractarianism (outline some beliefs)?

Answer 27

- also known as High Anglicanism, it aimed at reasserting traditional Catholic doctrines and practices within the Church of England - believed in the importance of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and its divine grace (and thus implicitly in transubstantiation). - but was not ready to accept the authority of the Pope as in the Roman Catholic church

Question 28

What is Tract 80?

Answer 28

the Doctrine of Reserve - the idea that the nature of God is beyond human comprehension and so you should have to work to gradually uncover theological truths.

Question 29

What is Soul Sleep?

Answer 29

A doctrine that teaches that when Christians die, they experience a period of rest for the second coming of Christ, and then they are taken to heaven and rewarded with eternal life.

Question 30

Where did Rossetti worship and which religious figures influenced her?

Answer 30

- Christ Church, Albany Street - following the Rossettis' conversion from Evangelism to Tractarianism in the 1840s, the priest William Dodsworth was very significant in shaping R's views - However, his conversion to Catholicism in 1850 was a huge betrayal of her faith. - She was also influenced by John Keble, as documented by her annotations and illustrations of his work 'The Christian Year' (1827)

Question 31

Who was Maria Rossetti and how does she relate to Rossetti's poetry?

Answer 31

Rossetti's older sister, they were very close (she dedicated Goblin Market to Maria) - Maria was known as the 'calm' and Christina as the 'storm' - joined the Society of All Saints (an Anglican order for women) in 1874 and became a nun, this exacerbated Rossetti's own religious insecurities and perhaps made her feel inadequate in comparison to her sister. - she died in 1876, tried (and failed) to convert her agnostic brothers on her deathbed.

Question 32

Who are some other female Victorian poets and how do they differ from Rossetti?

Answer 32

L.E.L and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, they wrote confessional lyric poetry such as the latter's 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1850) - famously Sonnet 43, 'How do I Love Thee' - yet Rossetti (although often writing in the first person) resisted the confessional and makes it difficult to apply an autobiographical reading to her work.

Question 33

important male Victorian poets, how do they differ from Rossetti?

Answer 33

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Robert Browning - they wrote long medieval epic ballads containing dead women who often lacked a narrative voice, Rossetti subverts this in her poetry (both through controlling her structure and giving women voices)

Question 34

When did Rossetti's father die and what did this lead to?

Answer 34

He died in 1854, which led to Rossetti's nervous breakdown in the following year.

Question 35

When did Rossetti reject the second proposal and from whom?

Answer 35

She fell in love with Charles Caley in the 1860s but she rejected his proposal in 1866 as his religious convictions were too uncertain and sceptical - this shows how Rossetti viewed marriage through a very sacramental and serious lens, and held very high standards for a partner.

Question 36

What evidences Rossetti's passionate nature?

Answer 36

- she was given to tantrums and fractious behaviour, but worked hard to subdue this - 'Christina Rossetti in a tantrum' (1862) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti demonstrates her fiery personality - known as 'the storm' alongside DGR

Question 37

What diseases did Rossetti suffer from throughout her life?

Answer 37

had depression throughout her life, was diagnosed with Graves Disease in 1872 and died of breast cancer in 1894