Rossetti, Cristina Georgina

ROSSETTI, CRISTINA GEORGINA. - Poet, b. in London on 5 Dec. 1830, d. there on 29 Dec. 1894, sister of D. G. Rossetti. She refused two husbands, one because he was Catholic, the other because he was an atheist, and lived a semi-monastic life, devoting herself to composing verses for children, religious verses and exegetical treatises on the Old and New Testaments.

She remained firmly Anglican, although she sympathized with the representatives of the "Oxford Movement" to the point that she wrote a funeral eulogy in verse on the death of Card. Newman. Unlike that of her brother, her mysticism is devoid of any character of sensuality, and her best religious poems are marked by rigor of inspiration and purity of execution and recall the "metaphysicals," especially Vaughan and Herbert. The lyrics of Monna Innominata arise from her amorous disappointments, but her best poetry is contained in Goblin Market and other poems (1862). The New poems were published posthumously, edited by her brother William Michael. The devotional works treat of the symbolic value of the Holy Scriptures, and among them the best known is The face of the deep, a commentary on the Apocalypse. The recurring themes in her poetry, for the most part attuned to melancholy, are death and the affection of the living for the dead, the vanity of earthly things and ascetic renunciation. This poetry has been appreciated and studied in Italy.

Augusto Guidi