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(1830-1894)
Rossetti, Christina Georgina
(1830-1894), British lyric poet, born in London. Although some of
her earliest verse was published in the Germ (1850), a Pre-Raphaelite
journal, and she sat as a model for a number of paintings by her
brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other Pre-Raphaelites, she was
not a member of the movement.
Much of Rossetti's work was religious in
nature; the themes of renunciation of earthly love and concern with
death shadow such favourite poems as “When I Am Dead, My Dearest”
and “Up-Hill”. Other poems, such as “A Birthday”,
are earthy, romantic, and sensuous. Rossetti's work encompasses
a wide range of styles and forms. Her ballads, sonnets, love lyrics,
and nonsense rhymes are all clearly products of an accomplished
mind.
A devout Anglican, Rossetti spent the last
15 years of her life as a recluse. At the same time, however, Rossetti
wrote delightful verse for children, such as the charming lyrics
in Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872). The most important collections
of her work are Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), considered
her finest poetry, and The Prince's Progress and Other Poems (1866).
She was considered a possible successor to Alfred, Lord Tennyson
for the post of Poet Laureate, but developed a fatal cancer in 1891.
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