Pre-Raphaelite+Poetry

The Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry is one of the many movements that happened during the Victorian era. Pre-Raphaelite poets were inspired by the style in which the artists of the same movement painted. The movement grew out of a connection with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and some of the poets influenced by Pre-Raphaelite artists include “Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, George Meredith, William Morris and Algernon Charles Swinburne” (Landow).

The paintings that inspired Pre-Raphaelite poetry can be represented in two forms: one being the diverse naturalism that the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was known for, and the other being the dark medievalism that took form later in the 1850s (Landow). The first form of Pre-Raphaelite painting does appear in a few Victorian poems but the second form of painting had a larger and more noticeable affect on poetry written by the Pre-Raphaelite poets (Landow). Although there is proof of some influence by the first form, the second form of Pre-Raphaelitism (also referred to as Aesthetic) has had the most in common with the poets of this group, who emphasized “lush vowel sounds, sensuous description, subjective psychological states, elaborate personification and complex poetic forms such as the sestina” (Landow).

One poet whose work was inspired by the first form of Pre-Raphaelite painting was Robert Browning. His poetry was incredibly popular with those who followed him and had a particular influence on Christina Rossetti (Landow). Like the paintings of the Brotherhood, Browning's poems “simultaneously [extended] the boundaries of subject and [created] a kind of abrasive realism, and like the work of the young painters, [Browning] also [employed] elaborate symbolism drawn from biblical types to carry the audience beyond the aesthetic surface, to which he, like the painters, aggressively [drew] attention” (Landow). Later poets involved in the Pre-Raphaelite movement tended to “etherealize sensation by displacing it from logical contexts and all normally expected physical relations with objects in the external world” (Harrison in Landow). They were able to effectively send the reader into the emotional worlds of their diverse characters with both the sensory and sensual becoming idealised in their poetry (Landow).

Along with the Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry, the passion for writing was also exhibited in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood journal called //The Germ// (1850). //The Germ// contained “pictures, reviews, essays and original poetry” and emphasized the Pre-Raphaelite poets’ interest in the beauty and sound of language and, as Roe explains, displayed that by experimenting in different forms of verse such as the ballad, lyric and dramatic monologue. The excitement demonstrated by the poets published in the journal to explore the interactions between words and images was a precursor to future high-profile Pre-Raphaelite projects including work done by “Rossetti, Millais and Hunt’s illustrations for an edition of Tennyson’s poems” (Roe).

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood disbanded in the early 1850s, but the Pre-Raphaelite movement in poetry managed to survive and began to resurface later in the 1850s when “ Oxford undergraduates William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones teamed up with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and painters Arthur Hughes, Valentine Prinsep and others to decorate the Oxford Union debating chamber with Arthurian murals” (Roe). During this period in London, a group of artists taught classes at the Working Men’s College, an institution created to help in giving working class men a chance to access a liberal education (Roe). This foray into education helped push the Pre-Raphaelite movement to reestablish itself. Later, in 1861, Ford Madox Brown and architect Philip Webb among others, joined several Pre-Raphaelites to found a decorative arts firm which eventually became Morris and Co” (Roe).

The Pre-Raphaelite movement also experienced its fair share of controversy. Algernon Charles Swinburne’s //Poems and Ballads 1866//, was met with critics reacting against the subjects he dealt with including “necrophilia, sado-masochism and blasphemy” (Roe). Swinburne’s upsetting ideas evolved into a theory, which “elevated the artistic quality of a work over moral, political or social content”, which was supported first by the Pre-Raphaelites and later by the Aesthetes closer to the end of the century (Roe). Another poet who garnered negative attention was Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his work //Poems, 1870//. The poems raised criticism from Robert Buchanan, who attacked Pre-Raphaelite poetry for its themes of “eroticism, medievalism and general rebellion against cultural norms” (Roe). While these defining qualities of the Pre-Raphaelite movement may have been abhorrent to some, they attracted another critic, Walter Pater, who became the defender of the Pre-Raphaelites after taking over from critic John Ruskin (Roe).

Some Pre-Raphaelite works include William Morris’s poem, "The Defence of Guenevere" (1858), and George Meredith’s collection of sonnets titled //Modern Love// (1862) (Roe). And although, as Landow points out, Christina Rossetti was never included in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as a member, she was an integral part of the group and she was the first poet of the movement to produce a Pre-Raphaelite success, the narrative titled //Goblin Market// (1862). This poem was also an integral publication in terms of Victorian book illustration because of the style used by the artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti; his style would eventually become a widely imitated style of illustration in the Victorian era (Roe).

Works Cited

Landow, George P. “Pre-Raphaelites: An Introduction” //The Victorian Web.// www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/4.html, 2014. Web. 25 Jan. 2015.

Landow, George P. “Pre-Raphaelitism In Poetry” //The Victorian Web//. www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/1.html, 20 Oct. 2004. Web. 25 Jan. 2015.

Roe, Dinah. “The Pre-Raphaelites” //Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians.// www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-pre-raphaelites, date??. Web. 25 Jan. 2015.