Christina Georgina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Born: 5 December 1830
Place of Birth: London, England
Died: 29 December 1894
Place of Death: London, England

 

Where are the songs I used to know,
Where are the notes I used to sing?
I have forgotten everything
I used to know so long ago...
--Christina Rossetti "The Key-Note"

 

 

 

Christina Rossetti was born in 1830 in London. She was published in the Germ, the Pre-Raphaelite journal, and sat for a number of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites, including some by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The existential themes in her poetry turned from unrequited love to the renunciation of earthly love. Death hovered above all of her work, like the demon in Fuseli's Nightmare. Christina Rossetti's famous poem "Goblin's Market" is an amazing meditation on women as sexual prey.

She was a devout Anglican who never married. There's this sexist assumption that something is solemn about women who never marry. Men who don't marry seem roguish and sexually charged. Anyway, she died in 1894.

 

 

What is Pink?
Christina Rossetti

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 thro'.
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!