| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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Rossetti’s final decade was marked by steady decline. Coming to believe that there was a conspiracy against him, led by no less a figure than Robert Browning, he sought refuge in the country, sharing a lease on Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, with William Morris (Knight 145). There his depression deepened, and in 1872 he attempted suicide (Spencer-Longhurst 125). Thereafter, both his emotional and physical decline and his literary success accelerated. According to Spencer-Longhurst, the year 1881 saw the publication of a new edition of Poems along with Ballads and Sonnets, but he also suffered a stroke. Retreating to Birchington-on-Sea to recuperate, he died there of kidney failure on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1882. Memorial exhibitions were held at the Royal Academy and the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1883, finally allowing the public to see the artworks he had refused to exhibit during the preceding decades (125). Following the exhibits, many of his works were successfully auctioned by Christies; William Michael reports that the sale raised £2,570, almost enough to cover his debts (Marsh, Dante Gabriel Rossetti 533). The artist, who only wanted his works to be thought good, would have been amazed at the enormous sums collectors would pay for them in the future. Notwithstanding the demand for his works, the undoubted success of his poetry and art has been forced to compete for reputation, as Fredeman points out, with the powerfully attractive events of his life.
The question of Rossetti’s position in what Fredeman chose to term “the pantheon” of English literature raises several others: how are the Rossetti stories and legends represented in the different genres; why have the auteurs chosen these genres; and why is he represented at all? These are the questions of this study. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century representations of Rossetti as a man and artist or of his work have, to