Christina Rossetti’s Faithful Imagination This page intentionally left blank Christina Rossetti’s Faithful Imagination The Devotional Poetry and Prose Dinah Roe © Dinah Roe 2007 All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988,or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90 Tottenham Court Road,London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan®is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-28187-9 ISBN 978-0-230-62520-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230625204 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 For Charlotte Roe We don't have to sneak into lectures anymore. This page intentionally left blank Contents Abbreviations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1 ‘Real Things Unseen’: The Tractarian Influence 8 2 ‘Decayed Branches from a Strong Stem’: Rossetti’s Keatsian Heritage 30 Pre-Raphaelite and Romantic tensions in Rossetti’s early poetry 30 Rossetti and melancholy 42 The hopeful imagination 53 3 ‘Great Love and Long Study’: Dante, Petrarch, and Monna Innominata 59 ‘Romantic’ and ‘Victorian’ Dante 59 Christina Rossetti and Beatrice 62 Monna Innominata: The preface 67 Monna Innominata: The poem 69 4 ‘A Courteous Tilt in the Strong-Minded Woman Lists’: Rossetti, St. Paul, and Women 96 Imagination and responsibility 96 Rossetti and Eve 100 Rossetti and St. Paul 106 Rossetti and female suffrage 112 Rossetti and Old Testament women 117 vii viii Contents 5 Spiritual Autobiography in Time Flies:A Reading Diary 131 Religious authority and spiritual humility 135 Reconciling artistic and spiritual responsibility 143 Typology 156 Time and eternity 165 6 Imagining Faith: Earth and Heaven in The Face of the Deep 168 Notes 197 Selected Bibliography 210 Index 216 Abbreviations Note: Unless otherwise indicated, references to Christina Rossetti’s poems are to The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti, ed. Rebecca Crump, 3 Vols., Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. ACR Kent, David A., ed. The Achievement of Christina Rossetti(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987) CGR Christina Georgina Rossetti CR Diane D’Amico, Christina Rossetti: Faith, Gender, and Time (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999) DGR Dante Gabriel Rossetti FD Christina Rossetti, The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse(London: SPCK, 1892) JK Letters The Letters of John Keats. Edited by Hyder Edward Rollins, 2 Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958) KCP Keats, John. Complete Poems. Edited by Jack Stillinger (London: Belknap Press, 1982) LB Jan Marsh, Christina Rossetti: A Literary Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994) Letters The Letters of Christina Rossetti.Edited by Antony H. Harrison, 4 Vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997–2005) LS Letter and Spirit: Notes on the Commandments(London: SPCK, 1883) ix