The twenty-first century has brought with it an influx of scholarly attention to ecological concerns, much of it grappling with the problems of climate change and life in the Anthropocene age. This has generated some fruitful theological discussion, much of it influenced by the work of Wendell Berry, by the likes of Ellen Davis and Norma Wirzba, for instance. One could also look to Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’. In Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith, Emma Mason digs into the corpus of the Victorian Anglican poet in order to show that ecotheological thought was taking place in the nineteenth century with as much fervor as it is in the present.
In this compact volume, Emma Mason pulls at the several threads that run throughout Christina Rossetti’s poetry, most noteworthy her Anglo-Catholic faith and her belief that the created world has a sacramental character. Mason reveals the deep link between Rossetti’s theological convictions and her environmental activism. She points out that while modern readers might find it odd that a Christian would have such a concern for the environment, or for non-human creatures, it is in fact Rossetti’s faith that propels her toward such a love for the created world. Because the world is God’s handiwork, and because, as Christians believe, God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, the whole cosmos has been infused with divine life, the whole of it revealing the glory of God.
Mason situates Rossetti’s poetry in the double context of her Tractarian faith and her ecological concerns (for example, Rossetti adamantly opposed vivisection), as well as within her social context. Mason points out that while many readers envision Rossetti as aloof and introspective, she matched her wide reading with a large circle of friends including Ruskin, Lewis Carroll, Edward Pusey, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, among others. A secondary argument that runs throughout the book is that this popular picture of Rossetti is indeed false, for she had a rich and vibrant social life.
After an introductory chapter, Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith is structured around four chapters. The first outlines the distinctly Tractarian vision of Rossetti’s faith. Mason outlines several of the central themes of the Oxford Movement and ties these to both the aptness of Rossetti’s reserved, poetic style, as well as her mystical reading of creation.
In the second chapter, Mason details the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites on Rossetti’s theology and writing. Here, Mason shades in some of the background of the Rossetti family, especially with respect to the artistic achievements of Christina’s brother, Dante Gabriel. She goes on to point out both the influence of Plato and Gregory of Nyssa on Christina’s reading of nature which she sees to share a kind of universal kinship among its various forms. Mason’s argument is to reinforce the harmony of Rossetti’s faith with the artistic vision she shares with the Pre-Raphaelites, one that looks to the intricacies of the natural world for Christic symbolism (or perhaps sacramentalism).
Mason’s third chapter discusses the way Rossetti’s faith bolstered her opposition to animal vivisection and shows that her concern for non-human creatures is present throughout her poetic corpus. Mason draws links between the distinctly Anglo-Catholic dimensions of Rossetti’s faith, Franciscan spirituality, and the fight for animal rights. For Rossetti, Mason makes clear, the non-human world is in a graced state and so is uniquely situated to teach humans what it means to live with and for God. While Mason carefully draws out many examples of Rossetti’s theologically driven concern for the well-being of all creatures (including even millipedes), one may wonder whether the plurality of textual evidence goes beyond scholarly scrupulosity to belaboring the point.
The fourth and final chapter of the book outlines Rossetti’s eschatological vision, focusing especially on her reading of the book of Revelation. Mason notes that for Rossetti, the eschaton is not about apocalypse and destruction, but rather the making new of all creation. The chapter begins with a discussion on baptismal grace, in which Mason argues that for Rossetti, the water of baptism draws together the baptized to the natural world, for water sustains both. Mason also touches on the kenotic elements of Rossetti’s theology, and suggests that it is in one’s self-emptying (following the example of Christ), that one increasingly opens oneself up to enter into harmony with the natural world.
Mason’s book will be of some interest to readers from various disciplines because of its engagement with Victorian poetry, theology, ecology and Anglican history. Readers will benefit from a familiarity with Rossetti’s corpus, though there are still some insights to Tractarianism that might be more widely applicable. Because of Rossetti’s deep Anglo-Catholic faith, Mason’s work also offers a detailed intellectual view of the key ideas within the Tractarian Movement, especially as they are entwined with ecology. The book offers a more nuanced picture of Tractarianism than wider surveys would allow, making it a wonderful supplement to any study of the movement.
With all of this being said, the value of Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith is primarily limited to specialists interested in Rossetti, for the broader concerns it addresses in ecology or theology are presented at a more accessible level in other recent volumes such as The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), for example. Mason’s book, however specialized, is priced more toward a popular audience, and for this reason it may happily find its way onto more bookshelves across disciplinary divides.
