| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
varies. She soon began posing as a model for members of the Brotherhood and is perhaps best remembered for her celebrated pose for Millais’ painting of Ophelia. In the oft-retold story of this session, Millais became so engrossed in his work that he failed to notice that the lamps being used to warm the bath water in which Lizzie was posed had gone out. Remaining in ever colder water without complaint, Lizzie took a chill and developed pneumonia; thus, she became a kind of sacrificial victim herself.
According to David Sonstroem, author of Rossetti and the Fair Lady, Rossetti’s idea of feminine beauty had been fixed before he and Lizzie met, mainly through his translations of Dante and other early Italian poets. Rossetti was transfixed by Lizzie’s ethereal beauty and long, auburn hair. She became for him a “heavenly lady” or a Madonna figure; in short, she was the embodiment of his imaginary Beatrice (3). It is important to understand Rossetti’s philosophy of love, which was “[a] deep well of spiritual philosophy, the waters of which are life giving…The nature of this philosophy is three fold…” (Cammell 8). According to Charles Richard Cammell, the entire definition of this philosophy is as follows:
In this, Rossetti was influenced by the ongoing interest in the medieval that served as a mode of dissent from the modern developments in the Victorian era and the connection that he had from his childhood with Italian writers. During a time that valued the medieval and was heavily influenced by Ruskin, Rossetti learned his love-lore of young lovers from medieval Italians like Dante and the early Italian poets. Lizzie appeared in multiple representations as the heavenly beauty of the soul and embodied Rossetti’s belief in the salvific nature of romantic love.