ROSSETTI, CRISTINA GEORGINA. - Poet, b. in London on 5 Dec. 1830, d. there on 29 Dec. 1894, sister of D. G. Rossetti. She rejected two suitors, one because he was Catholic, the other because he was an atheist, and lived a semi-monastic life, devoting herself to the composition of 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 extent that she wrote a poetic funeral elegy on the death of Card. Newman. Unlike that of her brother, her mysticism is devoid of every sensual element, and her best religious poems are marked by rigor of inspiration and purity of execution, recalling the “metaphysicals,” especially Vaughan and Herbert. The lyrics of Monna Innominata arose from her amorous disappointments, but her best poetry is contained in Goblin Market and other poems (1862). The New poems were published posthumously under the editorship of her brother William Michael. Her devotional works deal with the symbolic value of Holy Scripture, and the best known among them is The face of the deep, a commentary on the Apocalypse. The recurring themes in her poetry, generally tinged with 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.