By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Christina Rossetti (1830-94) was one of the leading female poets of the Victorian era. Her ‘Song’, beginning ‘When I am dead, my dearest’, remains one of her best-loved poems. In this post we offer a short summary and analysis of ‘When I am dead, my dearest’ (as it’s sometimes known), paying particular attention to its language and meaning.
An introduction to Rossetti’s life and work
Christina Rossetti (1830-94) was one of the Victorian era’s greatest and most influential poets, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Algernon Charles Swinburne. In this post we offer a very short biography of Christina Rossetti, taking in the most curious and interesting aspects of her life and work.
Rossetti was the younger sister (by two years) of the Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Christina Rossetti was born in London in 1830, and lived with her mother virtually all of her life. She never married. Next to a biography of her brother Dante Gabriel, the biography of Christina Rossetti can seem tame by comparison; but her work is curious and idiosyncratic and raises interesting questions about how much it reflects her own life and her own beliefs.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Remember’, written by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) when she was still a teenager, is a classic Victorian poem about mourning and remembrance. It was written in 1849 but not published until 1862 when it appeared in Rossetti’s first volume, Goblin Market and Other Poems.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was still in her mid-twenties when she wrote this classic sonnet about male art and the way it uses and depicts women. ‘In an Artist’s Studio’ is a widely (and rightly) praised poem, but a few words of analysis might help to shed light on this canvas.
The most significant events in the history of books on the 5th of December
1784: Phillis Wheatley dies. The first black poet of the Americas to publish a book, Wheatley was an eighteenth-century black slave taught to read by her owners. She composed over 100 poems in her lifetime. You can read some of her poetry in this interesting post about her.