Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) [Historical, Ch.6, pp. 291] is an English poet considered to be one of the most successful women poets in of the Victorian era. She published numerous poetry books including, Goblin Market and other Poems (1862), The Prince's Progress (1866), A Pageant (1881), and The Face of the Deep (1882). In the world of Orlando, these works would have been written after Orlando’s transformation from a man to a woman, which took place during the 1600s. Novels, plays, poetry, and literary expression, in general, are inextricably intertwined with Orlando’s character both before and after their transformation. The written word is how Orlando processes and attempts to understand their identity and the world around them. Not only are Orlando’s personal poems, plays, and other writings important to their identity, but reading and learning about other works is integral to Orlando's continuously developing and changing identity. Orlando identifies with Christina Rossetti not only as a fellow woman poet in a male-dominated creative sphere, but also as a fellow poet wrestling with and exploring the complexity of gender in her poems: “Critical interest in Rossetti’s poetry swelled in the final decades of the twentieth century, a resurgence largely impelled by the emergence of feminist criticism; much of this commentary focuses on gender issues in her poetry and on Rossetti as a woman poet” (Poetry Foundation). With gender as one of the central themes of Orlando, Woolf’s inclusion of Christina Rossetti connects Orlando to the broader cultural conversation surrounding gender of the Victorian Era. ( 252 word count)

“Christina Rossetti.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christina-rossetti. Accessed March 13 2023. 

Woolf, Virginia. “Chapter 6.” Orlando: A Biography, Mariner Books, Boston, 2022, pp. 291.