CHRISTINA ROSSETTI: Learning Not to Be First [Kindle Edition]

The author centres this book on how Rossetti the presentation of Christina Rossetti as a saintly, pious woman, which eclipses her passion and self-sacrifice. One of the major strengths of this book is how Jones includes many different influences originating from and contributing to this image of Rossetti. She discusses Barrett Browning, Emily Bronte and Dickinson as religious writers (as well as other prominent Victorian writers) and how they influenced Rossetti as a writer and a woman, how the press portrayed her and the influence the press had on Victorian perceptions, her death, and how she would come to be portrayed in the consequent evolution of literary scholarship. Unlike other comparable books, it includes many personal letters and in-depth press commentary. This is an enjoyable book, valuable for those new to Rossetti as it is written with warmth and humor, but useful for scholars as the references, select bibliography, features index and illustrations are excellent.

I didn't know much about Christina Rossetti until I read this: I'd read some of her poetry including the spectacular and disturbing Goblin Market, but her life had been rolled in with Dante Gabriel and the Pre-Raphaelites. This is an excellent antidote. While Jones covers the PRB and DGR (since they all had an impact on Christina's sheltered life) she does focus as much as possible on both Christina the woman and Christina the poet. There are ample samples of both her imaginative work and also domestic letters and a sense of scholarship that eschews some of the more popular theories about CR.

Most interesting, was the extent to which Christina's reputation has been conditioned by our and historical views of women's writings: as Jones points out, women who write in a so-called 'feminine' style (simply, directly, about emotions, nature etc) are only ever rated as 'women writers' who cannot compare with real (i.e. male) poets. On the other hand, an 'intellectual' woman such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a contemporary of Christina's, are tainted by a kind of muscularity in their writing ("falsetto muscularity" in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's memorable and disdainful phrase). Jones puts Rossetti back into her rightful place as a creative artists, despite her gender.

Ultimately this is a hugely sad story of a Victorian woman who loves twice but never marries because she cannot bear to marry a man who's religious faith and belief is less than hers, and so she goes through life, alone, lonely, frustrated. The violence and sexuality which she struggles so hard to conquer erupt from her writing. Reading her life in 2007, really brings home the extent to which so many female C19th maladies may have been psychosomatic, the result of such intense and life-long repression.

Altogether this is a well-written, sensitive and revealing book: and if it sends more people (back) to Christina Rossetti's work, then it will have done it's job extremely well.

Written with a beautiful clarity and simplicity that echo the poetic style of its subject, Kathleen Jones' biography of Christina Rossetti is a rich and rewarding read. I fell completely into the world of the Rossettis always confident that I was in safe hands. Not only does Jones paint this poet's life with all its passions and its denials but she places Christina Rossetti firmly in her context alongside other women poets and writers of the time. She also charts the growing struggle of women for equality. (I was intrigued to discover that writing, in the case of women, was associated with the womb and was thought to make women sterile!)
But above all it's the poetry that comes first in Kathleen Jones' treatment of the poet's life, and reading the biography made me want to go straight back and read the poetry itself. Highly recommended.