christina rossetti context

Question 1

what late 19th century movement was Rossetti associated with

Answer 1

Pre-Raphaelite

Question 2

What was the pre-raphaelite movement?

Answer 2

an artistic movement dedicated to recapturing the beauty of a (much-mythologized and romanticized) Middle Ages.

Question 3

Who was rossetti’s brother and why was he important

Answer 3

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a founder of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood movement aswell as being an accomplished painter and poet himself

Question 4

What mental disorder did Rossetti suffer from

Answer 4

Religious Mania

Question 5

What is religious mania?

Answer 5

an intense religious experience, which could be delusion or false beliefs

Question 6

When was rossetti born and when did she die?

Answer 6

1830 - 1894

Question 7

What are the main focuses of rossetti’s work?

Answer 7

focuses on mortality, religious devotion, and the complexities of women’s lives in a conservative Victorian society

Question 8

Who is Rossetti often compared too?

Answer 8

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

Question 9

Of what faith was Rossetti?

Answer 9

Anglo-Catholic

Question 10

What was significant about rossetti’s ethnicity?

Answer 10

By being italian rossetti takes influence from italian work such of that of Petrarch

Question 11

What were the key influences of rossetti’s works

Answer 11

The bible , fairytales and folklore

Question 12

Who was the monarch at the time of rossetti’s writiing

Answer 12

Queen Victoria

Question 13

What were the expectations of the victorian woman?

Answer 13

English women of the “Victorian age” were expected to conform to strict expectations regarding everything from education to sexuality and marriage

Question 14

prior to the mid 1800s what was it legal for a man to do

Answer 14

to use beating as valid form of authority over his wife

Question 15

in what year did the matrimonial causes act come into law

Answer 15

1878

Question 16

what was the matrimonial causes act

Answer 16

an act that allowed woman to seek legal separation from their husbands in cases of adultery , cruelty or desertation

Question 17

what were married women legal rights like in the 1800s

Answer 17

very few legal rights when married and not recognised by law as separate beings

Question 18

what was the feminist movement of rossetti’s time period called

Answer 18

the suffragettes

Question 19

what was rossetti’s view of women’s role

Answer 19

sometimes argued that in a biblical sense a woman was subordinate to a man but also argued for women representation in parliament and often spoke out against the sexual exploitation of women

Question 20

what was rossetti’s work considered to be in comparison to elizabeth barrett browning’s

Answer 20

less intellectual , less political and less varied but with a greater lyric gift

Question 21

what did rossetti’s father call her and brother dante

Answer 21

the two storms

Question 22

rossetti’s temperament

Answer 22

prone to tantrums and fractious behaviour

Question 23

how much of rossetti’s work was devotional

Answer 23

more than half

Question 24

where does rossetti’s morbidity come from

Answer 24

bouts of serious illness and her almost constant and sadly smitten personality

Question 25

what did rossetti volunteer to do in 1854 but was rejected

Answer 25

join the crimean war as one of florence nightingale’s nurses

Question 26

where did rossetti volunteer in 1859

Answer 26

St Mary Magdalens penitentiary for fallen women