CRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI. - Poetess, born in London on 5 Dec. 1830, died there on 29 Dec. 1894, sister of D. G. Rossetti. She refused two suitors, 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 verse, 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 extent that she wrote a verse funeral elegy on the death of Cardinal Newman. Unlike her brother’s, her mysticism lacks any sensual character, and her best religious poems are marked by rigorous inspiration and purity of execution, recalling the Metaphysicals, especially Vaughan and Herbert. The lyrics of Monna Innominata stem from her amorous disappointments, but her finest poetry is contained in *Goblin Market and Other Poems* (1862). The *New Poems* were published posthumously under the care of her brother William Michael. Her devotional works treat the symbolic value of Holy Scripture; among them the best known is *The Face of the Deep*, a commentary on the Apocalypse. The recurring themes in her poetry, mostly 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.