Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti. By Dorothy Stuart. (Macmillan. 5s.)
THE centenary of Christina Rossetti's birth has naturally inspired many fresh studies of a poet whose perfection of technique commends her to a generation not wholly in sympathy with her attitude to life. It is a proof of the assured position she has reached that she should now be included in the jealously guarded " English Men of Letters " series ; and Miss Dorothy Stuart's Christina Rossetti is worthy at once of its subject, and of its position in this select company of monographs. It was not possible for Miss Stuart to tell . us much that is new about Christina. Her family and friends have already yielded up their memories of that consummate artist and devoted Anglican, " at once passionate and austere," who reveals her real life in " Monna Innominata " and the best of the devotional lyrics.
But it is the mark of a good biographer to raise by her own vigorous presentation of a living personality her reader's critical interest ; and this Miss Stuart is able to do. We read her eagerly, but not always with agreement. We are glad that she is not too much in awe of her subject to remember that Christina's religious background included pitch-pine and red baize hassocks ; but it is hard to believe that, freed from " the Anglican groove," she might have become " a woman mystic not unworthy to stand beside St. Teresa and St. Catherine of Siena." Her intense self-occupation and recoil from vigorous action are decisive against such a reading of her character ; and, indeed, the genius of the great artist is seldom doubled with that of the mystical saint. Miss Stuart is more successful in dealing with her heroine's love-affairs. Here she knows how to be witty as well as respectful ; a welcome gift in the biographer of a poet.
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