Ways in to Rossetti

An intriguing poet

Featuring on a number of current A Level English syllabuses, the poetry of Christina Rossetti makes for intriguing study.

On one level she is very accessible – dealing as she does with universal themes such as love, loss and the impact of beauty. However, there is an elusive quality to many poems, as they seem to allude to a world that is closed off to the inhabitants of an empirical, materialistic, post modern 21st century.

A bid for freedom

Rossetti’s experience of life in Victorian England had a clearly defined focus, developed within the constraints of what was considered acceptable for women in her position. Her strong impulse for freedom of imagination and self expression was instead met through her Christian faith.

Opening up her world

Coming to Rossetti’s work from a background of other religious beliefs or none means that the references she used as shorthand need to be worked at in a way she would not have envisaged. But once the reader sees what she is getting at, her work sings.

Help for students

In September Crossref-it.info launched an extensive guide to Rossetti’s work, in which everything that might be less than clear to modern readers is illuminated at the touch of a cursor (or finger if you are accessing the material via your mobile).

Help for busy teachers!

If you are a teacher wondering how you can engage your students with these texts, it may help to know that this week Crossref-it.info is launching

a series of six lesson sequences on a selection of Christina Rossetti's poems which take the

headache out of planning! There are a variety of different approaches suitable for different styles of learner or levels of ability, as well as keeping in mind the requirements of differing syllabuses.

Whichever way you come to Christina Rossetti, we want you to get the most from the experience. That’s why Crossref-it.info exists!

Poetry – a male preserve?

Poetry – a male preserve?

Up to around fifty years ago, most people would have struggled when asked to name a famous female poet. The poetry canon was dominated by figures like the Romantics, (blogged about last week), Shakespeare, Donne and Herbert, Pope, Tennyson and Eliot. Unlike today, only a few women poets ever made it into print or continued to be read after their lifetime.

The achievement of the few that did is therefore all the more remarkable. The work of the Brontë sisters (see August blog), Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti has continued to speak to new generations of readers. The latter is perhaps less familiar than her contemporaries. She does not have the romance of illicit relationships, or dramatic landscapes attached to her name.

Quietly powerful

Instead, Rossetti lived quietly in London for most of her life, single and dogged by ill health. Yet her poetry is powerful and direct, illuminating friendship and fear, faith and death. Through her individual perspective she touches on a universal experience.

Allusions explained

Many readers today will not be familiar with the social and religious world that Rossetti inhabited, and feel somewhat daunted at approaching her poetry because of this. One of the reasons that Crossref-it.info came into existence was to provide just the kind of help that allows readers to access works of literature peppered with allusions – in this case biblical ones.

Through her poetry Rossetti was opening up many issues close to her heart; it helps to see what she meant when she referred to paths and ladders, blood and brokenness. The brand new guide to The poems of Christina Rossetti will give students and teachers all the information they need in order to fully enjoy her work.