The Pre-Raphaelites- From Rossetti to Ruskin

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by Dinah Roe




  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  THE PRE-RAPHAELITES

  DINAH ROE is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose interests include the nineteenth-century novel, Victorian poetry, and women’s writing. Born and raised in the United States, she holds degrees from Vassar College (USA) and University College London. She has taught English Literature at UCL and the University of Hertfordshire. She has written Christina Rossetti’s Faithful Imagination (2006), edited Christina Rossetti: Selected Poems for Penguin Classics (2008) and is currently working on a biography of the Rossetti family.

  The Pre-Raphaelites

  From Rossetti to Ruskin

  Selected with an Introduction by

  DINAH ROE

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  This selection first published in Penguin Classics 2010

  Selection and editorial material copyright © Dinah Roe, 2010

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the editor has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196259-7

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chronology

  Introduction

  Further Reading

  A Note on the Texts

  WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

  From Rosabell

  Morning Sleep

  Sonnet: Early Aspirations

  To the Artists Called P.R.B.

  ‘I Go to be Cured at Avilion’

  Art for Art’s Sake

  JOHN RUSKIN

  The Last Smile

  Christ Church, Oxford

  The Mirror

  The Old Water-Wheel

  The Hills of Carrara

  FORD MADOX BROWN

  Angela Damnifera

  For the Picture ‘The Last of England’

  For the Picture Called ‘Work’

  COVENTRY PATMORE

  The Seasons

  Stars and Moon

  From The Angel in the House: The Betrothal

  The Gracious Chivalry

  Love Liberal

  WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

  The Fairies

  Lady Alice

  The Maids of Elfen-Mere

  Three Sisters of Haworth

  Express

  Vivant!

  JAMES COLLINSON

  From The Child Jesus

  THOMAS WOOLNER

  My Beautiful Lady

  Of My Lady in Death

  O When and Where

  Emblems

  JOHN TUPPER

  A Sketch from Nature

  Viola and Olivia

  A Quiet Evening

  WALTER HOWELL DEVERELL

  The Sight Beyond

  A Modern Idyl

  GEORGE MEREDITH

  From Modern Love

  DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

  The Blessed Damozel

  The Card-Dealer

  The Burden of Nineveh

  Jenny

  The Portrait

  Nuptial Sleep

  The Woodspurge

  The Honeysuckle

  The Sea-Limits

  For ‘The Wine of Circe’ by Edward Burne-Jones

  Mary’s Girlhood

  On the ‘Vita Nuova’ of Dante

  Beauty and the Bird

  A Match with the Moon

  John Keats

  Words on the Window-Pane

  Astarte Syriaca

  From The House of Life

  A Sonnet is a moment’s monument

  V. Heart’s Hope

  VI. The Kiss

  X. The Portrait

  XI. The Love-Letter

  XVIII. Genius in Beauty

  XIX. Silent Noon

  XXV. Winged Hours

  XXVII. Heart’s Compass

  XXIX. The Moonstar

  XL. Severed Selves

  XLIX, L, LI, LII. Willowwood

  LIII. Without Her

  LXIII. Inclusiveness

  LXIX. Autumn Idleness

  LXXVIII. Body’s Beauty

  LXXXIII. Barren Spring

  LXXXV. Vain Virtues

  LXXXVI. Lost Days

  XCV. The Vase of Life

  XCVII. A Superscription

  CI. The One Hope

  To the P.R.B.

  St Wagnes’ Eve

  Nonsense Verses

  There’s an infantine Artist named Hughes

  There is a young Artist named Jones

  There is a young Painter called Jones

  There’s a combative Artist named Whistler

  A Historical Painter named Brown

  There was a young rascal called Nolly

  There’s a Scotch correspondent named Scott

  There once was a painter named Scott

  There’s the Irishman Arthur O’Shaughnessy

  There is a poor sneak called Rossetti

  As a critic, the Poet Buchanan

  ELIZABETH SIDDAL

  True Love

  Dead Love

  Shepherd Turned Sailor

  Gone

  Speechless

  The Lust of the Eyes

  Worn Out

  At Last

  Early Death

  He and She and Angels Three

  A Silent Wood

  Love and Hate

  The Passing of Love

  Lord, May I Come?

  A Year and a Day

  WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI

  Her First Season

  ‘Jesus Wept’

  The Evil Under the Sun

  Dedication

  Mary Shelley

  CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

  Dream Land

  An End

  A Pause of Thought

  Sweet Death

  Goblin Market

  A Birthday

  After Death

  My Dream

  The World

  From The Prince’s Progress

  The Queen of Hearts

  From Monna Innominata

  Babylon the Great

  On Keats

  Portraits

  In an Artist’s Studio

  The P.R.B.

  ARTHUR HUGHES

  To a Child

  In a Letter to William Bell Scott at Penkill

  WILLIAM MORRIS

 
The Chapel in Lyoness

  Riding Together

  The Defence of Guenevere

  The Gilliflower of Gold

  The Judgment of God

  Spell-Bound

  The Blue Closet

  The Tune of Seven Towers

  Golden Wings

  The Haystack in the Floods

  Two Red Roses Across the Moon

  Near Avalon

  Praise of My Lady

  Summer Dawn

  From The Earthly Paradise

  An Apology

  The Wanderers

  May

  ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

  A Ballad of Life

  Laus Veneris

  A Match

  A Cameo

  The Leper

  A Ballad of Burdens

  The Garden of Proserpine

  Before Parting

  Love and Sleep

  The King’s Daughter

  A Ballad of Dreamland

  Sonnet for a Picture

  From Tristram of Lyonesse

  A Death on Easter Day

  A Ballad of Appeal

  JOHN PAYNE

  This is the House of Dreams. Whoso is fain

  From Sir Floris

  A Birthday Song

  Dream-Life

  Love’s Amulet

  Faded Love

  Rondeau

  Sad Summer

  ARTHUR O’SHAUGHNESSY

  Ode

  Song [‘I made another garden, yea’]

  Song [‘I went to her who loveth me no more’]

  The Great Encounter

  Living Marble

  The Line of Beauty

  Pentelicos

  Paros

  Carrara

  PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON

  Love’s Shrines

  Love Past Utterance

  Shake Hands and Go

  Love’s Warfare

  Stronger Than Sleep

  The New Religion

  OLIVER MADOX BROWN

  Sonnet: Written at the Age of Thirteen for a Picture by Mrs Stillman

  Song [‘Lady, we are growing tired!’]

  Abbreviations

  Biographical Notes

  Selected List of Paintings and Illustrations

  Notes

  Index of Titles

  Index of First Lines

  Acknowledgements

  No work of this kind is ever produced alone, and thanks are owed to enough friends and colleagues to fill a separate collection. But I would like to acknowledge the following: my parents Ralph and Kathy Roe (as always) and Hamish and Dors Kidd for their humbling generosity and support; the magnificent, indispensable James Kidd; Oliver and Alyse Roe; David Shelley and his father Alan, a man whose love of books will always be an inspiration; the irrepressible Darren Cohen, Rhian Edwards and Fran Varian; Stephen Gerson, whose kindness and intelligence are reflected in his daughter Meredith.

  I would also like to thank Diane D’Amico, Mary Arseneau, Joseph Bristow and Margaret Reynolds for their valuable advice and encouragement. Their generosity with both their time and experience has enriched this selection. Special thanks goes to Daniel Karlin, who has long helped to transform my ugly-duckling thoughts into elegant swans. In particular, I am grateful to him for casting his keen editorial eye over this selection’s introduction, and for his fine reading of ‘The Blessed Damozel’. Thanks also to Kate Parker and Alexis Kirschbaum, whose professionalism and support have helped make this project a pleasure.

  Chronology

  1830 Publication of Alfred Tennyson’s Poems, Chiefly Lyrical.

  1833 Anonymous publication of Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession. Dante Gabriel Rossetti correctly identifies Robert Browning as the author.

  1837 Coronation of Queen Victoria.

  1842 Publication of Tennyson’s Poems and Browning’s Dramatic Lyrics.

  1843 Publication of John Ruskin’s Modern Painters I. William Wordsworth becomes Poet Laureate.

  1846 Publication of Ruskin’s Modern Painters II and Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë).

  1848 Publication of the Communist Manifesto in London. Revolution in France, Germany and Italy. Chartist mass demonstration on Kennington Common in London. Publication of Richard Monckton Milnes’s Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats. Formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB).

  1849 PRB members William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais exhibit at the Royal Academy (RA). Rossetti exhibits at the Free Exhibition, Hyde Park Corner, London.

  1850 Death of Wordsworth. Tennyson becomes Laureate. Publication of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Exhibitions of PRB paintings attract adverse criticism. Publication of Pre-Raphaelite magazine the Germ. James Collinson resigns from the PRB.

  1851 Ruskin’s letter to The Times and his pamphlet Pre-Raphaelitism published. The Great Exhibition takes place at Crystal Palace.

  1852 Thomas Woolner sails for Australia.

  1853 Millais elected Associate Member of the RA.

  1854 Holman Hunt leaves for his tour of the Holy Land. Working Men’s College established in London; Ruskin, Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and Arthur Hughes teach here. Publication of Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House, part 1.

  1855 Publication of Browning’s Men and Women and Tennyson’s Maud and Other Poems. William Bell Scott begins painting the Northumbrian History Cycle murals at Wallington.

  1856 Holman Hunt returns from the Middle East. The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine created by second-wave Pre-Raphaelites Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris at Oxford. Publication of Ruskin’s Modern Painters III and IV.

  1857 Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Morris, Hughes, Valentine Prinsep and others begin to paint the Oxford Union murals. Exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings held at Fitzroy Square, London, including works by Elizabeth Siddal. Pre-Raphaelite exhibition held in New York. Publication of the Moxon edition of Tennyson’s Poems and Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal.

  1858 Publication of Morris’s The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems. Formation of the Hogarth Club.

  1859 Publication of the first version of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

  1860 Publication of Ruskin’s Modern Painters V.

  1861 Morris, Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, among others, form the decorating firm William Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

  1862 Death of Elizabeth Siddal. Publication of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and Other Poems and George Meredith’s Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside.

  1865 Ford Madox Brown’s Work exhibited. Publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  1866 Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, dedicated to Burne-Jones, is published then withdrawn by Moxon. Republished by John Camden Hotten. William Michael Rossetti publishes a pamphlet defending Swinburne.

  1867 Publication of Morris’s The Life and Death of Jason.

  1868 Publication of Browning’s The Ring and the Book. William Gladstone becomes Prime Minister.

  1869 Publication of the second version of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.

  1870 Rossetti publishes his first collection, Poems.

  1871 Robert Buchanan’s article ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry’ appears in the October issue of Contemporary Review. Buchanan expands this article for a pamphlet in 1872. Rossetti’s reply, ‘The Stealthy School of Criticism’, appears in the December issue of the Athenaeum.

  1872 Publication of Swinburne’s reply to Buchanan, Under the Microscope.

  1873 Publication of Walter Pater’s The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry.

  1874 Woolner elected as a member of the RA. Disraeli becomes Prime Minister.

  1875 Morris becomes the sole owner of the reorganized ‘William Morris & Co.’.

  1880 Gladstone becomes Prime Minister.

  1881 Publication of Dalziels’ Bible Gallery with illustrati
ons by Ford Madox Brown, Burne-Jones, Holman Hunt, Simeon Solomon and George Frederick Watts, among others.

  1882 Death of Rossetti; Buchanan publicly retracts his criticism of Rossetti in a poem and preface to the second edition of his novel God and the Man.

  1885 Burne-Jones becomes an Associate of the RA. Publication of the final ‘Idyll’ of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.

  1891 Publication of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Formation of the Rhymers’ Club. Morris sets up the Kelmscott Press.

  1892 George Meredith elected President of the Society of Authors. Death of Tennyson. Publication of Bell Scott’s Autobiographical Notes.

  1894 The Yellow Book literary magazine begins.

  1896 Millais elected President of the RA.

  1897 Tate Gallery (the National Gallery of British Art) opens.

  1901 Death of Queen Victoria.

  1905 Publication of Holman Hunt’s autobiography, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

  1906 Holman Hunt retrospective exhibitions held in London and Manchester.

  Introduction

  In 1872, W. H. Mallock published a mock-literary cookbook for aspiring poets. One ‘recipe’ was entitled ‘How to Write a Modern Pre-Raphaelite Poem’. Among the recommended ingredients were: ‘obsolete and unintelligible’ words, ‘a perfectly vacant atmosphere’, ‘three damozels, dressed in straight nightgowns’, ‘a stone wall’, ‘trees and flowers’, as well as stars, aureoles and lilies. ‘When you have arranged all these objects rightly,’ the recipe continued, ‘take a cast of them in the softest part of your brain, and pour in your word-composition.’1

  Mallock was not the first critic to accuse Pre-Raphaelite poetry of being soft in the head. From the outset, Pre-Raphaelitism was taken to task for its pretentiousness and unreality, aggravated by a self-opinion at odds with the Victorian virtues of modesty and reserve. Championed by the Aesthetes and Decadents of the fin de siècle, Pre-Raphaelite poetry has yet to shake off its reputation as a ‘fleshly’, self-indulgent trend enjoyed ‘by young gentlemen with animal faculties morbidly developed by too much tobacco and too little exercise’.2

  It is true that if we ask such poetry to emulate the engagement of the Victorian novel with contemporary social and political issues, we shall (with rare exceptions such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘Jenny’) be disappointed. Pre-Raphaelitism helped to popularize the notion of ‘art for art’s sake’ (in painting and the decorative arts as well as poetry), often explicitly in opposition to the utilitarian ethos which, we should not forget, formed the dominant ideology of the mid-century.3 This helps to explain the concentration of Pre-Raphaelite poems on sexual yearning and artistic introspection, and the movement’s consciously idealized medievalism. Devoid of the political edge of Benjamin Disraeli’s Young England, Pre-Raphaelite writing explored a world where art and beauty were more important than the growth of the railway, market fluctuations or the ‘Two Nations’.4 At the time, Pre-Raphaelitism (and especially its poetry) was dismissed as naïve, over-sexualized, immoral and, most damningly, ‘unmanly’; since then, the movement’s atmosphere of middle-class Bohemianism has made it an easy target for satire. Yet this ‘counter-culture’ also had an aspect of recognizably ‘Victorian’ earnestness and high-mindedness, and, as we shall see, its artistic programme originally promoted a ‘modern’ aesthetic which was found shocking not because it was dreamy and nostalgic, but quite the reverse: because it was hyper-realistic and given to recording supposedly sacred events in repulsive detail. Like many such movements, in other words, it is a compound phenomenon, and its principal figures are not easily categorized, whether according to the preconceptions of their own day or of ours.

 

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