context

• Reserve- the theory that people had to work to understand and accumulate religious knowledge to gain access to Heaven.
• Fallen women- women who had pre-marital sex and were shunned from society.
• St Mary Magdelene's Home of Fallen Women- Rossetti volunteered there as she believed women should be integrated back into society, like in Goblin Market.
• Engagements- Rossetti had 2 failed engagements both on religious grounds. James Collinson converted to Roman Catholicism whilst she was Anglo Catholic. Refused Charles Bagot Cayley's proposal too.
• As a teen, Rossetti became more troubled and religious. She was a 'fountain sealed' once she became devotional.
• Gabriel, her brother, was a key founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who sought for more realistic and authentic art inspired by nature, love and death. They also addressed modern social problems as Rossetti does in her poems with the fallen women and male temptation.
• She was a devout Anglican in Christ Church of Albany Street. The Oxford Movement of Anglicanism under William Dodsworth was a pre-reformative kind of Christianity that rejected the luxury of the Pope and believed in reserve and working for your faith.
• She had a mental breakdown at 15 and some suspect early onset Graves disease caused her depression and breakdown.
• Rossetti believed in Soul Sleep- when you die, you don't immediately go to Heaven, you're asleep and vaguely conscious of the world around you as seen in Remember and At Home.
• She didn't want women's suffrage as she believed in the religious hierarchy.
• Sisterhood is a key theme as she saw Maria as more devout and better than her.
• She was so religious that she wouldn't place things on top of the Bible or get married because Collinson converted to Roman Catholicism.
• Eucharist- eating the body and blood of Christ.