The Rossetti Legacy

Victorian Poetry, Pre-Raphaelite Art, and the Exploration of Self-Identity

Charlotte Xiaoqian Cai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040769546
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

This groundbreaking study reveals how the Rossetti siblings revolutionized Victorian conceptions of selfhood through a sophisticated dialectic that transcends conventional binaries – matter and spirit, sacred and secular love, strength and vulnerability, divinity and depravity. While their contemporaries remained trapped in Victorian doubleness, Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti boldly negotiated these opposing forces, creating a radical new synthesis that challenges our understanding of 19th-century thought. Their extraordinary fusion of matter and spirit – a deliberate departure from Victorian orthodoxy – resurrects a profound intellectual tradition extending from Renaissance humanism through Romantic idealism. This intellectual courage manifests most brilliantly in their pioneering integration of word and image: for Christina, this synthesis illuminates aesthetic-religious relationships through liturgical symbolism and ceremonial ritual; for Dante Gabriel, it achieves what Walter Pater recognized as the rare marriage of aesthetic brilliance with 'deep, philosophic reflectiveness'.  This comprehensive investigation penetrates the siblings' dialectical philosophies to expose unexpected affinities and crucial differences, establishing vital connections between their poetic principles and artistic innovations across all creative phases. The result is not merely a reinterpretation of the Rossettis, but a fundamental reconsideration of Victorian intellectual history and its enduring influence on modern consciousness.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Self-Renunciation and Self-Fulfilment: Interplay of Sacred Love and Secular Love in Monna Innominata and Later Life
• 2 Fluidity of Life, Love, and Death in The House of Life
• 3 The Aesthetics of Renunciation in Christina Rossetti’s Double Works
• 4 Passion and Passivity: Fluidity of Identity in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Double Works
• Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Index