Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song

Joshua Fagan (University of St Andrews)

Ed. by Dainy Bernstein, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Jessica Gossling (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1872

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Children's Literature
Poem collection

Resources

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Immediately popular upon its original release in 1872, the nursery-rhyme collection

Sing-Song

demonstrates Christina Rossetti to be one of the quintessential children’s poets of the Victorian age, along with Edward Lear and Robert Louis Stevenson. In a June 1878 letter, she writes happily of the impression the book made on her niece Olive: “I quite admire our clever little Olive, and am really glad she should be imbued with

Sing-Songs

” (

Family Letters

74). Rossetti deeply cared for the rhymes, and in a July 1881 letter to her brother Dante Gabriel, she opines that

Sing-Song

is a volume “containing some of my best songs” (94).

Compared to Rossetti’s other work, such as the unsettling “Goblin Market,” the elegantly pleasing rhymes of Sing-Song appear rather straightforward in

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1630 words

Citation: Fagan, Joshua. "Sing-Song". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16038, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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