My Heart is Like a Singing Bird - Selected Bird Poems of Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti

Description

"My Heart is Like a Singing Bird - Selected Bird Poems of Christina Rossetti" contains a fantastic collection of beautiful nature poetry by English poet Christina Georgina Rossetti, with each poem linked by the common theme of birds. A wonderful little poetry pocket book brimming with 15 delightful avian poems coupled with colour illustrations by John James Audubon that would make for a fantastic gift for birdwatchers, twitchers and literature lovers alike. Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English writer famous for her devotional, romantic, and children's poems. Her most well known poems include "Goblin Market" and "Remember", and she also wrote the lyrics to two famous British Christmas carols: “In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas". Other notable works by this author include: “Commonplace and Other Stories” (1870), “Speaking Likenesses” (1874), and “Called to Be Saints” (1881). Contents include: “Birds and Poets, an Excerpt by John Burroughs”, “A Birthday”, “The First Spring Day”, “A Birds-eye View”, “On the Wing”, “A Bird Song”, “Bird Raptures”, “Bird or Beast?”, “A Green Cornfield”, “Gone Forever”, “Symbols”, “April - An excerpt from The Months: A Pageant”, “Freaks of Fashion”, “An Old World Thicket”, “A Wintry Sonnet”, and “The Peacock has a Score of Eyes”. Ragged Hand is proud to be publishing this brand new collection of classic poetry now complete with illustrations by James John Audubon and an excerpt by John Burroughs.

Sujets

• Paperback

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781528792837
• Langue: English

Extrait

MY HEART IS LIKE A SINGING BIRD
SELECTED BIRD POEMS OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
With Illustrations by
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON



Copyright © 2021 Ragged Hand
This edition is published by Ragged Hand, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk




Contents
Christina Rossetti
BIRDS AND POETS
An Excerpt by John Burroughs
MY HEART IS LIKE A SINGING BIRD
Selected Bird Poems of Christina Rossetti
A BIRTHDAY
THE FIRST SPRING DAY
A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
ON THE WING
A BIRD SONG
BIRD RAPTURES
BIRD OR BEAST?
A GREEN CORNFIELD
GONE FOREVER
SYMBOLS
APRIL
FREAKS OF FASHION
AN OLD WORLD THICKET
A WINTRY SONNET
THE PEACOCK HAS A SCORE OF EYES


Illustrations
Christina Rossetti, September 1866
Common Troupial
Le Conte's Sharp-tailed Bunting
Common Redstart
Brewer's Blackbird
Savanna Finch
Harris' Finch
Great Crested Flycatcher
American Robin
Noddy Tern
Ivory Billed Woodpecker
Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher
Missouri Red-Moustached Woodpecker
Indigo Bunting


Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti was born on 5th December 1830, at 38 Charlotte Street, London. She was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional and children's poems – best known for her works Goblin Market, Remember, and the Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter.
Rossetti was the daughter of Gabriele Rossetti, a poet and a political exile from Vasto, Abruzzo, and Frances Polidori, the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori. She had two brothers and a sister (Dante, William, and Maria), all of whom grew up to become fellow writers and artists.
Christina was a lively and intelligent child, and was educated at home by her mother and father. They gave her religious works, classics, fairy tales and novels to study – and Rosetti delighted in the works of Keats, Scott, Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. The influence of the work of Dante Alighieri, Petrarch and other Italian writers filled the home, and would have a deep impact on Rossetti's later writing.
In the 1840s, her family faced severe financial difficulties due to the deterioration of her father's physical and mental health. In 1843, he was diagnosed with persistent bronchitis, possibly tuberculosis, and faced losing his sight. He gave up his teaching post at King's College and though he lived another eleven years, suffered from depression and never fully recovered. As a result of this tension, when she was fourteen, Rosetti suffered a nervous breakdown and left school. Bouts of depression and related illness followed.
It was during this period that Rossetti, her mother and her sister became deeply interested in the teachings of the Church of England – and religious devotion came to play a major part in Rossetti's life.
In her late teens, Rossetti became engaged to the painter James Collinson, the first of three suitors. He was, like her brothers Dante and William, one of the founding members of the avant-garde artistic group, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded in 1848). The engagement was broken in 1850 when he reverted to Catholicism. Later she became involved with the linguist Charles Cayley, but declined to marry him, also for religious reasons. The third offer came from the painter John Brett, whom she also refused.
Rossetti piblished her first two poems ('Death's Chill Between' and 'Heart's Chill Between'), which appeared in the Athenaeum , in 1848 – at the age of eighteen. Her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems , appeared in 1862, when she was thirty-one. It received widespread critical praise, establishing her as the foremost female poet of the time.
Although it is ostensibly about two sisters' misadventures with goblins, critics have interpr