The poems of Elizabeth Siddal in context
Author | : Anne Woolley |
Publisher | : Manchester University Press |
Total Pages | : 312 |
Release | : 2021-03-09 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781526143860 |
ISBN-13 | : 1526143860 |
Rating | : 4/5 (60 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: A ground breaking new book that considers all Siddal poems with reference to female and primarily male counterparts, adding substantially to knowledge of her work as a writer, and their shared contemporary concerns. Dante Rossetti, Swinburne, Tennyson, Ruskin and Keats were either known to her or a source of influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with which she was associated, and certain of their texts are compared with hers to discuss interplay between erotic and spiritual love, the ballad tradition, nineteenth-century feminism, and the Romantic concept of the conjoined physical and spectral body. Siddal’s artwork is used to introduce each chapter, while other Pre-Raphaelite paintings illuminate the texts and further the inter-disciplinary philosophy of the Brotherhood. This important and stimulating book focuses on the intrinsic merit of Siddal’s poetics whilst advocating a research method that could have multiple applications elsewhere.