The+Fleshly+School+of+Poetry+and+The+Stealthy+School+of+Criticism

Robert Buchanan was a Victorian poet and novelist who lived from 1841 to 1901. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he was a socialist, a humanitarian and was anti-religious like his parents (Phelan). In 1866 he moved to Scotland and took to writing verse, prose, and criticism. It was here he began his crusade against what was known as the fleshly school of poetry—and in particular, the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The fleshly school was made up of poets who wrote sensual poetry about the affections of the body. Buchanan's essay was controversial at the time and started a literary battle against the fleshly poets, a battle "for which he is chiefly remembered" today (Phelan).

In October 1871 "The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr. D.G. Rossetti" was published in the //Contemporary Review//. This critique was a scathing review of Rossetti's //Poems// written by Buchanan under the pseudonym Thomas Maitland. This particular review was an attack on what Buchanan referred to as the fleshly school of poetry. To Buchanan the fleshly school represented a group of minor poets who were "public offenders" (1330) and whose poetry was "diligently spreading the seeds of disease, broadcast wherever they [were] read and understood" (1330). In his review, Buchanan uses Rossetti's poetry to specify how "simply nasty" (1332) the poetry of the fleshly school is. Buchanan refers specifically to the sonnet "Nuptial Sleep" which according to the Rossetti archive was "singled out for special abuse by Robert Buchanan" (Nuptial Sleep) to demonstrate the lengths of Rossetti's indecency. Buchanan's principle goal in his review is to criticize Rossetti for chronicling "his amorous sensations," (1332) and as such, he accuses him of preferring matters of the body to matters of the soul.

——————Dante Gabriel Rossetti taken in 1863.————————————————————Robert Buchanan taken no later than1893—————————— — ———From the National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons———————————From the National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons——————

"Nuptial Sleep" is the poem around which the majority of Buchanan's arguments are centered. The poem is indeed sensual in nature, detailing an intimate moment of rest between two lovers after they consummate their love. "Nuptial Sleep" was singled out by Buchanan and it was the only poem printed in its entirety in the criticism. Buchanan was seemingly outraged by the sexual nature of the poem and wrote, "Here is a full-grown man, presumably intelligent and cultivated, putting on record for other full-grown men to read, the most secret mysteries of sexual connection, and with so sickening a desire to reproduce the sensual mood, so careful a choice of epithet to convey mere animal sensations, that we merely shudder at the shameless nakedness" (1332). In fact, Rossetti had previously expressed doubts about publishing this particular sonnet in his sequence "The House of Life." According to the Rossetti Archive, he asked his brother for advice about the inclusion of "Nuptial Sleep." The sonnet was included in the original //Poems;// however, it was removed from "The House of Life" in a subsequent publication in 1881. Rossetti maintained this was because "Nuptial Sleep" employed "an unpleasant excess of realism of a kind not suitable for an indiscriminate audience," and the extent to which this decision was affected by Buchanan is unknown (Nuptial Sleep).

In December 1871 "The Stealthy School of Criticism" was published in //The Athenaeum.// This essay was Rossetti's retort to Buchanan's review of his //Poems//. Rossetti explains that Buchanan's review is a "critical masquerade" (1341) that takes the poems it criticizes out of context, and ignores many of Rossetti's most profound works. Rossetti gives his poem "Love-Sweetness" as an example of his enjoyment of bodily delights yet in this poem he ascertains that "all the passionate and just delights of the body are declared—somewhat figuratively, but unmistakably—to be as naught if not ennobled by the concurrence of the soul at all times" (1342). Rossetti explains that "every word on [Buchanan's] own tongue is covert rancour, and every stroke from his pen perversion of truth" (1345).

In June 1872, Dante Gabriel Rossetti suffered a breakdown. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography this "took the form of persecution mania involving a belief in a widespread conspiracy to dishonour him" (Bullen). This mania became so pressing that he made a suicide attempt, drinking an entire phial of laudanum and as a result, was comatose for 2 days (Bullen). Whether this breakdown can be entirely attributed to Buchanan's review is unclear. What is known, is that after his breakdown, the public scrutiny of Rossetti's 'fleshly' poems, and of the relationship he was having with Jane Morris increased, thereby heightening Rossetti's already pressing anxieties (Bullen).

Later in his life, Buchanan seemed to reconsider his attack on Rossetti and decided that it had been excessive. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he dedicated his novel //God and the Man// to "an old enemy" who was later identified as Rossetti, and proclaimed at //The Academy// that "Mr. Rossetti ... never was a Fleshly Poet at all" (Phelan).

Was Buchanan's reaction to Rossetti's poetry too extreme? There are certainly sensual aspects to some of Rossetti's poems and thus any reaction towards them is highly subjective. It is up to the reader to form their own opinions and interpretations of the poems of the 'fleshly school,' and reading both essays alongside Rossetti's //Poems// would constitute a good beginning.

Works Cited

Buchanan, Robert. "The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr. D. G. Rossetti." //The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory.// Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2005. 1329-1340. Print.

Bullen, J. B. " Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828–1882)." //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography//, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/view/article/24140 accessed 5 Feb 2015.

//Nuptial Sleep.// Rossetti Archive, n.d. Web. @http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/5-1869.raw.html accessed 5 Feb 2015.

Phelan, J.P. " Buchanan, Robert Williams (1841–1901)." //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography//, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/view/article/32153 accessed 5 Feb 2015.

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. "The Stealthy School of Criticism." //The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory.// Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2005. 1341-1345. Print.