"That angelic demon of a Christina"

"A Christmas Carol" by D.G. Rossetti, 1867

In the spirit of Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, today is the 180th birthday of Christina Rossetti. A prominent member of the Victorian canon, Rossetti was born in England in 1830 to an Italian émigré and his wife. She began writing poetry at a young age but also displayed such a strong temper so as to provoke her father to call her “that angelic little demon of a Christina.”

Always grappling with the paradoxes of the human experience and Christian faith, Rossetti found in her poetry a place of meditation. For her, art, like faith was a matter of both beauty and truth. Even a cursory glance at Rossetti’s poetry will assure a reader of one thing: her personal faith does play a crucial role, not only in her poetic vision, but in her purpose for expressing that vision.

Rossetti is not merely concerned with didacticisms or self-expression but instead cares to explore both her world and her heart in intimate detail as she attempts to understand the ways of God. For her, as for Ruskin (19th century art critic) the physical world and personal experience do seem to afford glimpses of the divine nature.

When these glimpses are observed and portrayed by the artist or the poet, the renderings become the means of grace, conduits, as it were, through which truth may flow. And, as Antony Harrison points out with regards to Ruskin’s philosophy, the poet herself becomes something of a prophet.