Dante
Gabriel Rosetti (1828-82), the third founding member of the Pre-Raphaelites,
became the recognized leader and even formed a second grouping of the
brotherhood in 1857, after Millais and Hunt had gone their separate ways.
Rossetti came from an artistic and versatile Italian family. He was raised a
strict
Anglican by
his mother. During his mid-adolescence, though, he began to turn away from his
religious upbringing. In contrast to his sister,
Christina,
and his fellow Pre-Raphaelite brother, William Holman Hunt, Rossetti didn't
embrace a structured, orthodox religious doctrine. Still, Christian history,
stories, symbols, and imagery remained major thematic elements in his work long
after he stopped adhering to organized religion.1 3
From an
early age Dante developed a Bohemian lifestyle - his collection of wombats
creating something of a stir - and he took to mysticism and religion, immersing
himself in Arthurian legendry. It was rumoured that many of his beliefs were as
much the result of a fondness for laudanum as any other cause. 2
He prefers to use women topics, writes about religious themes and presents commonplace symbols and associations only to show that they have no meaning and that no longer do we live in the world of the Divina Commedia -- a world of divinely ordained analogies and hierarchies. Rossetti was a poet as well as a painter, and in common with the other Pre-Raphaelite, his art was a fusion of artistic invention and authentic renderings of literary sources. He specialized in soulful maidens of extraordinary looks for his romantic themes, using his beautiful but neurotic wife Elizabeth Siddal as his model. Her striking face, with its long-nosed, languid expression, appears in many pictures. 3 1
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tried to
accept his religious upbringing left a space in his life that he filled with
his art. He turned to the Fair Lady -- whether as Blessed Damozel, femme
fatale, or victim -- as a source of salvation. His heaven was a heaven of
earthly pleasure. His God smiled approvingly on the lovers' embrace. The
creation of art was an act of devotion and the appreciation of female beauty a
form of prayer. Rossetti's devotion to female beauty in his work reflects a
similar obsession in his personal life. In his poetry and painting, Rossetti
used the theme of feminine beauty to explore his own fantasies and conceptions
of heaven, salvation, and the dichotomy between earthly and spiritual love. 3
One of his most famous poems, which reflect his symbolism and his usual topics, is The Blessed Damozel, which is going to be analysed accordingly.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was only 18 when he wrote "The Blessed Damozel." He began the poem while he was translating Dante’s Vita Nuova in which Beatrice in Heaven is the earthbound Dante’s saviour. Similarly in “ The Blessed Damozel” a deceased woman looks down at her beloved from Heaven and wait for him, but the Blessed Damozel is much more human than her precursor, because Rosetti chose to describe her physical characteristics.3
[1]
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/prb.html
2
http://www.love-poem.org.uk/
3
http://victorianweb.org/authors/dgr/moller12.html
Although Rossetti was still young, the images and themes in his poem have caught the attention of many critics throughout the years.4
The Blessed Damozel
The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.
(To one, it is ten years of years.
. . .Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o'er me - her hair
Fell all about my face. . . .
Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)
It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could seen the sun.
4. http://swc2.hccs.cc.tx.us/rowhtml/rossetti/summary.htm
It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.
Around her, lovers, newly met
In joy no sorrow claims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.
And still she bowed herself and stooped
Out of the circling charm;
Until her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.
From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.
The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf, and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.
(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song
Strove not her accents there,
Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the midday air,
Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)
"I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come," she said.
"Have I not prayed in Heaven? - on earth,
Lord, Lord, has he not prayed?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?
"When round his head the aureole clings,
And he is clothed in white,
I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God's sight.
"We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.
"We two will lie i' that shadow of
That living mystic tree
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be.
While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.
"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing her; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."
(Alas! we two, we two, thou say'st!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)
"We two," she said, "will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.
"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.
"He shall fear, haply and be dumb.
Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.
"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:
And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.
"There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:--
Only to live as once on earth
With Love - only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he."
She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,
"All this is when he comes." She ceased.
The light thrilled towards her, filled
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)5
5.http://www.web-books.com/classics/Poetry/Anthology/Rossetti_D/Blessed.htm
The poem has three voices: a narrator describing the relationship, the thoughts and desires of the woman in heaven, and the voice of the still living beloved who express his desperation. Heaven is plenty of embracing couples. The activity of heaven is actually earthly, corporeal love. This love has become spiritual, though, because it's based in the love and desire for the union of two souls and two bodies, not just a physical attraction. In Rossetti's fantastical code, anyway, true love is spiritual and smiled upon by God. 3
The first few stanzas tell of how
the Damozel is in heaven overlooking earth and thinking of her lover. He makes
a description of his divine idealization of Heaven using his own symbolism like
“she had three lilies in her hand” and “and the stars in her hair were seven”
which have no meaning because they have only an aesthetic value. This symbolism
received some critics, which accuse Rosetti for make Heaven materialistic, “
from the gold bar of Heaven”.3 4
Rossetti writes in stanza three of how time to
the Damozel seemed to last forever because she is without her love.
"Albeit, to them she left, her day had counted as ten days” There are some
stanzas in the poem (stanza four, eleven seventeen and twenty-four) where the
lover speaks about his feelings and desperation without her.4
In stanzas ten and eleven, her
lover describes the sound of her voice like a bird's song which tells the
reader that not only is he thinking of her, but he can hear her and feel her
about him. Of course, she can't understand why she must be miserable in heaven
when all others are with their loves, and ask God "Are not two prayers a
perfect strength?" (Stanza 12). And
then in stanza thirteen, she dreams of the day that they will be together and
present themselves in the beauty and glory of God. If they aren’t together she
can’t enter in Paradise. 4
It is in
the stanza 17, when the narrative changes again back to the lover. He
says that she says "we two" but he asked himself, when and will they
ever really be together like they used to be. The two worlds separating them
don’t keep them apart in thought, but it is not possible to be together.4
In
stanza twenty-two, she says that she will want their love to be as it was on
earth with the approval of Christ the Lord.
Near the end of the poem, in the two last stanzas, the Damozel finally realizes that she can’t have this until the time comes. The Damozel understands it and suddenly becomes peaceful and lets the light take her in stanza twenty-three. Finally she will enter heaven without her love. Her lover knows this and say in the last stanza "I saw her smile...I hear her tears." Apart, but together in their thoughts, but the two are separated by two worlds and there is nothing that can be done but hope and pray. And for that reason the Damozel "laid her face between her hands, And wept." 4
The Blessed Damozel That work was made by Rosetti after the poem. The man is drapped along the bottom of the painting in a predella depicting a separate landscape, looking to his lover in Heaven for his salvation.3 6
Dante Gabriel Rossetti used the ideas of Christian belief in order to write this poem. His poem explores if two lovers, or anyone will be reunited once again in heaven.4
This union of physical beauty and sensuousness with the idea of Heaven and salvation is Rosetti’s fantasy. His view of religion compares love to Heaven and claim the spirituality of love, which is approved by God, and can last forever and bring us the salvation.
6.
http://www.anglistik.uni-bonn.de/research/lessenich/The_Blessed_Damozel_2.jpg
