ROSSETTI
,OCR A-level English
Literature - Component
1 AO3 (Context)
Context is integral to the OCR A-level. This document is a compiled list of all necessary
context for one to memorise and regurgitate into essays!
OCR’S CONTEXT SHEET
This is a fact sheet of all the things you need to learn off by heart as background to your study
of Rossetti. Supplement this sheet with wider reading on the topics below.
Christina Rossetti’s Life (b.1830, d.1894)
● Father: Gabriele Rossetti, Italian immigrant, scholar and Professor of Italian, King’s
College London. Died 1854.
● Mother: Frances Polidori, half-Italian, teacher.
● Sister: Maria Francesca Rossetti (accomplished biographer).
● Brothers: William Michael Rossetti (editor and critic), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (artist
and poet). Brothers were founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
● Lived with mother, sister and elder brother for most of her life. Worked as a governess
to contribute to family finances.
● Brothers encouraged her to publish.
● Suffered poor physical and mental health throughout life. Nervous breakdown in
teenage years.
● Died breast cancer 1894.
Rossetti’s Relationships
1) 1848 Gets engaged to James Collinson (member of the PRB). 1850 engagement ends
because of his Catholicism. 1858 Collinson marries someone else.
2) 1866 Charles Bagot Caley proposes, but Rossetti refuses on religious grounds.
3) John Brett (No Thank You John)
, Rossetti’s Beliefs
● Attended Christ Church, Albany Street with mother and sister. Devotees of the Oxford
Movement, which aimed to revive the Catholic Tradition within Anglicanism.
● Oxford Movement also associated with Tractarianism. Tractarian doctrine of ‘reserve’
- God’s dealings with humankind involve the ‘holding back’ of ‘sacred or important
truths’ that are beyond mortal comprehension. The natural world is a reserved
expression of divinity. Secrecy and mystery = aspects of religious language. Ie
parables or Bible verses often seen as designed to veil rather than clarify God’s
message.
● Anti-vivisection campaigner.
● The word ‘feminist’ didn't enter British vocabulary until the 1890s.
● Rossetti was associated with the Langham Place Circle - middle-class women
championing women’s rights. Never a member but associated with them.
● Letters show she was in favour of allowing women to preach and speak in parliament.
● 1871 - refused to sign a bill supporting women’s suffrage. She reasoned that the Bible
grants different roles to men and women, and that the same principle should apply in
Victorian Britain.
● 1859 Joined the team as a volunteer at the St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in
Highgate, who worked to rehabilitate young prostitutes.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB)
● Established by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848
● Principally a collection of painters united by dissatisfaction with teachings of Royal
Academy of Art.
● Themes: return to nature and a celebration of inspiration over the dictates of reason.
● Focus: Biblical narratives, other myths.
● Christina Rossetti not a member (rejected by Millais / William Hunt, other founding
members). Her poetry both reflects and critiques the Pre-Raphaelites.
● Painted by members of the PRB a number of times.
● Gabriel Dante Rossetti married one of his models, Elizabeth Siddall, who then
overdosed on laudanum in 1862.
Rossetti’s Literary Inspirations
● The Bible
● Ancient Greek poet, Sappho - spontaneous, emotionally charged, tragic love poetry.
● Felicia Hemans, a late Romantic poet. Wrote Records of Women (1828).
● Letitia Elizabeth Landon, hugely popular in early decades of 19th century.
● Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the most successful 19th-century women’s poets.
● John Keats, late Romantic poet.
,OCR A-level English
Literature - Component
1 AO3 (Context)
Context is integral to the OCR A-level. This document is a compiled list of all necessary
context for one to memorise and regurgitate into essays!
OCR’S CONTEXT SHEET
This is a fact sheet of all the things you need to learn off by heart as background to your study
of Rossetti. Supplement this sheet with wider reading on the topics below.
Christina Rossetti’s Life (b.1830, d.1894)
● Father: Gabriele Rossetti, Italian immigrant, scholar and Professor of Italian, King’s
College London. Died 1854.
● Mother: Frances Polidori, half-Italian, teacher.
● Sister: Maria Francesca Rossetti (accomplished biographer).
● Brothers: William Michael Rossetti (editor and critic), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (artist
and poet). Brothers were founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
● Lived with mother, sister and elder brother for most of her life. Worked as a governess
to contribute to family finances.
● Brothers encouraged her to publish.
● Suffered poor physical and mental health throughout life. Nervous breakdown in
teenage years.
● Died breast cancer 1894.
Rossetti’s Relationships
1) 1848 Gets engaged to James Collinson (member of the PRB). 1850 engagement ends
because of his Catholicism. 1858 Collinson marries someone else.
2) 1866 Charles Bagot Caley proposes, but Rossetti refuses on religious grounds.
3) John Brett (No Thank You John)
, Rossetti’s Beliefs
● Attended Christ Church, Albany Street with mother and sister. Devotees of the Oxford
Movement, which aimed to revive the Catholic Tradition within Anglicanism.
● Oxford Movement also associated with Tractarianism. Tractarian doctrine of ‘reserve’
- God’s dealings with humankind involve the ‘holding back’ of ‘sacred or important
truths’ that are beyond mortal comprehension. The natural world is a reserved
expression of divinity. Secrecy and mystery = aspects of religious language. Ie
parables or Bible verses often seen as designed to veil rather than clarify God’s
message.
● Anti-vivisection campaigner.
● The word ‘feminist’ didn't enter British vocabulary until the 1890s.
● Rossetti was associated with the Langham Place Circle - middle-class women
championing women’s rights. Never a member but associated with them.
● Letters show she was in favour of allowing women to preach and speak in parliament.
● 1871 - refused to sign a bill supporting women’s suffrage. She reasoned that the Bible
grants different roles to men and women, and that the same principle should apply in
Victorian Britain.
● 1859 Joined the team as a volunteer at the St Mary Magdalene Penitentiary in
Highgate, who worked to rehabilitate young prostitutes.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB)
● Established by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848
● Principally a collection of painters united by dissatisfaction with teachings of Royal
Academy of Art.
● Themes: return to nature and a celebration of inspiration over the dictates of reason.
● Focus: Biblical narratives, other myths.
● Christina Rossetti not a member (rejected by Millais / William Hunt, other founding
members). Her poetry both reflects and critiques the Pre-Raphaelites.
● Painted by members of the PRB a number of times.
● Gabriel Dante Rossetti married one of his models, Elizabeth Siddall, who then
overdosed on laudanum in 1862.
Rossetti’s Literary Inspirations
● The Bible
● Ancient Greek poet, Sappho - spontaneous, emotionally charged, tragic love poetry.
● Felicia Hemans, a late Romantic poet. Wrote Records of Women (1828).
● Letitia Elizabeth Landon, hugely popular in early decades of 19th century.
● Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the most successful 19th-century women’s poets.
● John Keats, late Romantic poet.
