ABSTRACT
In Christina Rossetti's reading of creation as a canticle or song, whales sing. Rossetti, listens to the whale sing in the context of the Benedicite, or Song of Creation, but revises the text to give each element of creation— from whales and stars to clouds and lambs— its own voice. For Rossetti, the whale is not a unique custodian of these '"true and sacred" pleasures' but rather one of a multiplicity of things that comprise creation. Victorian protests against cruelty to animals, whales, are often founded in theological references to the Book of Jonah, the Psalms and figures like St Brendan and patron saint of ecology, Francis of Assisi. For many Christian writers, new developments in natural history and animal rights signified a welcome focus on the wonder of God's creation. Rossetti's reading of creation under grace counters those who associate the logic of Christianity as complicit with environmental crisis and species inequality.
