THE
P RTAL
February 2013
Christina
Rosetti
Page 7
Anglican
Luminary
by Fr Keith Robinson
The cultured
and artistically gifted Rosetti family of Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury were Italian
exiles from Abruzzo. Father was Professor of Italian at King’s College London and there were four children.
One of the two boys, Dante Gabriel, became a very famous poet and artist and co-founder of the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood. One of the daughters eventually became an Anglican nun, and the youngest,
Christina Georgina, a notable writer and poet.
The family appears not to
have continued in the religion
of their native land, but became
devout adherents of the Anglo-
catholic movement in the
Church of England, which was
beginning to gain ground in the
capital. Initially all the children
were educated at home by their
mother, and steeped in the
writings of Keats, Scott and the
other Romantic authors.
Christina found herself
isolated
The family hit hard times in
the 1840s, as the father’s physical
and mental health began to
deteriorate, to such an extent that he was obliged to
relinquish his post at King’s in 1843, when Christina
was only thirteen. Dante was sent to college, the
others to work, and Christina found herself isolated
and subject to depression. It was at this point that
the family found much consolation in their religious
practice.
well, but without slipping into
the more hedonistic tendencies
into which some – including her
brother Dante – eventually fell.
She cooperated with the SPCK
in the publication of several
books; notably Called to be
Saints(1881); The Face of the Deep
(1893) and Seek and Find (1879)
But it was the poetry which
made her name, most famously
of all In the bleak mid-winter, set
to music first by Gustav Holst,
and later even more beautifully
by Harold Darke. Love came
down at Christmas, and Who has
seen the wind? have also been
included in some hymnals.
actively opposed slavery
Christina worked as a volunteer from 1859-1870
at the St Mary Magdalene “House of Charity” in
Highgate, a refuge for former prostitutes, and was
especially concerned about under-age prostitution. She
also actively opposed slavery and animal exploitation.
Christina sometimes modelled for her brother, Although she never married, she fell in love in the
and indeed she appears in some of his best known early 1860s with the painter Charles Cayley, but did
paintings. Through him she came to know many of not marry him because “she enquired into his creed
his contemporaries. Their company broadened her and found he was not a Christian.”
otherwise rather narrow experience and outlook. Even
so, one has the impression that it was a somewhat a sad and often lonely life
In 1872 she was diagnosed with Graves Disease, a
esoteric community. Christina began to publish her
own poetry, and it is with this that she made her mark, distressing illness which also affected her physical
appearance. In 1893 she further developed breast
as arguably the foremost woman poet of her time.
cancer, and it was from this that she died on the 29
poetry made her name
December 1894. After a sad and often lonely life this
Her writings have an intensity of feeling, guided by sensitive artist with words was buried in the Rosetti
her firm religious views, and an acute awareness of the family grave in Highgate Cemetery. There is much
beauty of the natural world around her. In fact she might more to remember her for than just her beautiful and
be said to suit the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelites very ever popular Christmas carol.