Christina Rossetti 1830 – 1894
pseudonym Ellen Alleyne
Poet.
5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894
What is pink?
recorded by Julia Pascal:
What is pink?
What is pink? A rose is pink
By the fountain’s brink.
What is red? A poppy’s red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? The sky is blue
Where the clouds float through.
What is white? A swan is white
Sailing in the light.
What is yellow? Pears are yellow,
Rich and ripe and mellow.
What is green? The grass is green,
With small flowers between.
What is violet? Clouds are violet
In the summer twilight.
What is orange? Why, an orange,
Just an orange!
1872
In an Artist’s Studio
Recorded by Julia Pascal:
In an Artist’s Studio
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel — every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more or less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
1856 published 1896
An Apple Gathering read by Julia Pascal – which of the two readings matches your interpretation of the poem? Do tell us!
An Apple Gathering
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother’s home was near.
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.
Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!
I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.
MINI BIOGRAPHY
Education
Educated at home by her parents through religious works, classics, fairy tales, and novels.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
1847 Began experimenting with verse forms (sonnets, hymns, and ballads).
Published poems in the Pre-Raphaelite magazine The Germ established in 1850 under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyn.
Gained strength from her strong Christian beliefs which also informed her work.
1859–70 Did voluntary work at the St Mary Magdalene house of charity, a refuge for ex-prostitutes – possibly drawing on this experience for Goblin Market.
Petitioned for legislation to protect children from prostitution and sexual exploitation by raising the age of consent.
1862 Published her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems.
Supported political causes campaigning for the abolition of slavery and against animal cruelty.
Author of famous Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter.
Major influence on the work of 20th century poets eg Ford Madox Ford and Philip Larkin.
Issues
Aged 14, suffered a nervous breakdown.
1840s The Rossetti family faced financial troubles after her father lost his sight.
Broke off her engagement to James Collinson when he converted to Catholicism.
Suffered from poor health for much of her later life.
Connection to Bloomsbury
1876 – 1894, Lived in Torrington Square, Bloomsbury.
1876 – early 1890s Researched and wrote in the British Museum Reading Room, networking with women there.
Female networks
Alice Boyd, Caroline Gemmer, Dora Greenwell, Jean Ingelow.
Pre Raphaelite sisters including Elizabeth Siddal though she did not maintain close relationships with many women outside her family sphere.
Writing/publications include
21 publications incl poetry, fiction and non-fiction.
to include:
Who Has Seen the Wind?
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Legacy
Plaque at 30 Torrington Square.
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christina-Rossetti
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christina-rossetti
Christina Rossetti: gender and power | The British Library (bl.uk)
Christina Rossetti: religious poetry | The British Library (bl.uk)