| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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Brotherhood. That exhibit, held just a year after the artist’s death, was by a historical coincidence, also mounted by the Academy” (Usherwood 1). Ninety-one years after his death, four hundred paintings, drawings, watercolors, pieces of stained glass and furniture, manuscripts, books, and photographs were brought together. Terence Mullaly, the exhibit reviewer for The Daily Telegraph, asserted that Rossetti should be viewed as “not only a prophet for our moment, but a mentor of the self-conscious yearnings of many” (11). Once begun, the revival continued to flourish from the 1970s through the end of the twentieth century—and into the twenty-first with the 2003–2004 Andrew Lloyd Webber Pre-Raphaelite and Rossetti exhibitions. What explains the new attraction to Rossetti—not merely the rediscovery of his work, but recovery of him as a “prophet?” The representations of Rossetti are, to quote Graham McCann, a “cultural praxis alive in each interpretation” (325). This book is a meta-biography that examines this central question: Who are the Rossettis who have been created by the values, obsessions, desires, and anxieties of a period? It asserts that, more important than establishing some particular truth about the poet-painter, such an approach to Rossetti can provide a proper understanding of his fictions. This means an understanding of his treatment, interpretation, and representation as well as of his re-presenters as seen in the framework of biographical narratives as defined by Ruth Hoberman. Rossetti scholarship has not yet attempted this. A larger understanding will place him and his work more clearly and correctly into the ever-evolving interpretive schema and sphere. It might also shed some light on why Rossetti’s work is most often eclipsed by his life.
When the ways in which Dante Gabriel Rossetti has been described in books and articles are read, it is impressive how relational his life was—how deeply and in how many ways he was connected with others. He is defined, like William Blake, by his work as both painter and poet, and also by his wife, family, and friends. Consequently, he is defined by many roles: as son, Italian-Englishman, brother, nephew, translator, painter, poet, lover, seducer, uncle, corporate founder, business partner, consultant, student, lyricist, son-in-law, brother-in-law, oppressor,