THE P
RTAL Christina Georgina Rossetti
5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894 by Will Burton
April 2011 Page 8
Anglican Luminary
Carol Services are always popular , not in April perhaps , but certainly at Christmas time . One of the most endearing carols is In the bleak midwinter . But how many know much about its author , Christina Rossetti ?
She was born in London and home educated by her mother . Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti was to be a noted artist , while her other brother William Michael and her sister Maria Francesca would both come to writers . It was quite a family .
Gabriel Rossetti had fled Naples and their mother , Frances Polidori , was the sister of John William Polidori the author of The Vampyre and friend of Lord Byron .
By the 1840s the family was in desperate financial circumstances due to her father ’ s bad health . At 14 Christina had a nervous breakdown . This led to depression and nervous illness .
Illustration by Brother Dante
Around this time the family became interested in the Anglo- Catholic movement in the Church of England . It was to play a major part in Christina ’ s life . She was engaged to be married twice : First to the painter James Collinson , and secondly to the linguist Charles Cayley . She broke both of them off because of the incompatibility of their religious beliefs .
She was the model for some of Dante ’ s best works , particularly The Girlhood of Mary Virgin , which was the first work to be inscribed with the initials ‘ PRB ’, later revealed to signify the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , and the Annunciation , Ecce Ancilla Domini .
Christina began writing at the age of seven
What can I give him Poor as I am ? If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb ; If I were a wise man I would do my part ; Yet what I can I give him - Give my heart . and published her first poem aged eighteen . She contributed to the Magazine The Germ on many occasions . Her most famous collection , Goblin Market and Other Poems , appeared in 1862 , when she was 31 .
From 1859 to 1870 she was a volunteer worker at St Mary Magdalene “ house of charity ” in Highgate , a refuge for former prostitutes .
Her large circle of friends and correspondents did not prevent her from writing and publishing works of a devotional nature and for children for the rest of her life .
In later life she suffered from Graves Disease and she had at least one serious heart attack . In 1893 she developed breast cancer and although the tumour was removed , she had a relapse in September 1894 and died the following year . She is buried in Highgate Cemetery .
Her Christmas poem In the Bleak Midwinter became widely known only after her death . It was set to music , first by Gustav Holst , and later by Harold Darke . Her poem Love Came Down at Christmas has also become widely known . In the early 20th century Rossetti ’ s popularity faded in the wake of Modernism , but in the 1970s scholars began to rediscover her work , and it regained admittance to the Victorian literary canon .