Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal (Victorian era - art history)

Teleute

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I've been kicking around the idea of a novel on the pre-Raphaelites, particularly Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, his wife. Siddal was a painter and poet, but she's most famous for being the model for, like, half of the paintings of the pre-Raphaelites, such as "Ophelia" and "Beata Beatrix." (These are very, very famous paintings, and you have certainly seen them before. In fact, if you've seen more than 2 pre-Raphaelite paintings, like by Millais and Waterhouse, you have probably wondered if the subjects are all the same woman. For the most part, they are.)

The reason I find them interesting is that 1) I've loved the pre-Raphaelites since I was a kid, and more importantly, 2) Elizabeth modeled as Ophelia more than once, and Beatrice (from Dante) more than once--and in a case of what seems like life imitating art, she lived (and died) like Ophelia and Beatrice. And her relationship with her husband Rossetti, in life and death (respectively), resembles the Ophelia/Hamlet and Beatrice/Dante relationships from fiction. And Rossetti, like Hamlet, experienced a downward spiral of insanity for his short life. His was due to drug addiction mostly, rather than mommy issues. But I digress.

So I can't figure out if my interest is academic or a source of fictional ideas, for one thing. That's my first problem. My second problem is that I can't figure out if it's lame--Siddal committed suicide, and Lord, I don't want to do a suicide girl project, like fiction about Sylvia Plath or something. That would be utter tripe. (And God knows, if this is lame, please say so. I have three ideas at any given time that I can work on, all involving mounds of research, all moving at a glacial pace. One less won't hurt.)

Here are the ideas for approaches I've come up with about the whole affair:

1) A sort of Hamlet from Ophelia's POV. Probably would not work, and would probably also be 14 year old goth girl fodder. *shudders* But because of the art imitating life factor, I keep thinking about it.
2) POV of an outside party, like Millais or her benefactor. Could be interesting, but I haven't come up with a good reason for them to be worthy of primary POV. Their lives were pretty boring.
3) One of those horrid, dysfunctional romances where each party tries to out-manipulate the other; i.e., a dark romance. This is the only kind of romance that I like, at all. Still, could easily be trite.

Here are the relevant facts:

1) Elizabeth was poorer and from a lower class family than Rossetti.
2) Their relationship/engagement lasted ten years before marriage; IIRC, Elizabeth was 30 by the time she and Rossetti were married. This was thought to be because Rossetti was too much of a pansy to risk angering his parents and sisters. (God, what a wimp! I hate this guy.) They married after Elizabeth almost died of illness. Friends of theirs pressured Rossetti to marry her for years.
3) Elizabeth delivered a stillbirth daughter while married to Rossetti, and was understandably devastated. She became pregnant again quickly thereafter (or at least, she thought she was pregnant), but then died of a laudanam overdose, which is thought to be self-inflicted.
4) At her burial, Rossetti buried his book of poetry with her, in her hair. He became obsessed with it and decided that he wanted the poetry back a few years later, and had her grave exhumed. This haunted him for the rest of his life. He published the poetry, but it received bad reviews due to their erotic nature.
5) Rossetti probably cheated on Siddal many times with younger models.

In sum, I'm having trouble coming up with a story about the details that doesn't strike me as cliched. I think the biggest problem is that Rossetti is such a douche and Elizabeth just takes it, and then kills herself when she can't take it anymore. I like heroines that are strong, even if they don't succeed, and it's hard for me to see her that way. Any advice?
 
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JoNightshade

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I could definitely see the story from HIS point of view - he struggles for years with family obligations and pressures, perhaps his career as an artist always takes his time, he wants this girl but isn't quite willing to give himself to her... Only to realize by the time he actually gets her that he's screwed with her so much that she's no longer happy. Their child (ie symbolic of their love) is stillborn, and so he attempts to rekindle the love but is unable; she takes her own life and he becomes obsessed with all of the possibilities he squandered when they might have been happy. Perhaps at this point all of his paintings of her become popular and he's additionally haunted by her image everywhere - while he was wasting his time trying to make his family and the public love him, SHE was the one who truly made his work timeless.

The general theme would be not taking those you love for granted, carpe diem, etc.
 

Teleute

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Jo, that's an excellent idea, thanks!
 

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I second Jo's idea - and I also think your subject matter sounds like it's got some possibilities. Puma
 

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Oh, interesting. The Pre-Raphaelites were as messed up as the Romantics (well, maybe), and that's something.

I'd say going at it from DG Rosetti's point of view is a good idea. I'm a huge fan of Millais (only vaguely knew his work until I had the chance to see an amazing exhibit at the Tate Britain last fall, when I fell in love with his art), but I think he'd be too far removed to make it work for you.

Sounds like a good idea, and I'm gald you're avoiding the goth-girl shudder-inducing route. :)
 

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Agree with the others. I was unaware of the exhumation to retrieve his poetry, that would be some chapter, especially when he first touches it. Wow. Good idea, now run with it...in a hurry.
 

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Alas...

you are not the only one to be fascinated by the story and recently there has been a spate of novels and non-fiction on Lizzie Sidall and Rossetti.

Lizzie lost her child, that's what drove her mad. Rossetti always was a hedonist and didn't marry Lizzie for a long time although she was his mistress for several years so I don't think the Hamlet idea would work.

Rossetti didn't give a damn for family and didn't struggle for years. He was quite wealthy. The facts have him marked as a typical Victorian man in his thinking that a wife was expected to support and encourage NOT compete. In other ways he was not typical Victorian, simply a man who would do anything for his art.

How are you going to balance the two characters without making Rossetti a villain and Lizzie a weak Victorian female?
 

Teleute

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Thanks for the responses, y'all! Rossetti is definitely the best choice; it's always hard for me to remember that the figure I consider a douchewaffle, as opposed to ones I find sympathetic, works the best.

Donroc, what's a stained glass attitude exactly?



you are not the only one to be fascinated by the story and recently there has been a spate of novels and non-fiction on Lizzie Sidall and Rossetti.

Really? I checked amazon, and they didn't seem to have very much. I saw a couple of fictional titles, but they were, well, pretty far removed from just being Rossetti and Siddal. (Like, one of the novels was about a mysterious female ethereal muse that kept popping up in different places and times, and it was all mystical.) If you know of some non-fiction, point me in the direction :) I found a biography of Rossetti, but nothing on Siddal to speak of.

Rossetti didn't give a damn for family and didn't struggle for years. He was quite wealthy. The facts have him marked as a typical Victorian man in his thinking that a wife was expected to support and encourage NOT compete. In other ways he was not typical Victorian, simply a man who would do anything for his art.

I thought that he encouraged Lizzie to do art? Or was that just her benefactor that I'm thinking of?

It's interesting that you say that, because I wonder if it's possible if Rossetti resented Lizzie for, in some ways, being more famous than he was. Scratch that - she probably WAS more famous than he was. That must've been quite a threat.

How are you going to balance the two characters without making Rossetti a villain and Lizzie a weak Victorian female?

I've been thinking about that; I think I need more information first. I've got a biography on order from amazon. Making a protagonist empathetic when he or she does bad things isn't hard. Making a non-protagonist female "victim" not a Mary Sue is harder. I think it's just a matter of making her do bad things, too? I mean, for example, when her benefactor sent her to Paris, she couldn't stay for very long because she spent all his money on expensive clothes - there is no possible "good" reason one could have for doing that. Either 1) she was frivolous, or 2) she was trying to catch the attention of/secure a man (which is totally understandable given her situation with a man that wouldn't marry her). I think she can be victimized, to a certain extent, while still having flaws, and while not being blameless.

Once again, thank y'all for the input!
 
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pdr

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Non-fiction...

and a view from the outside is 'A Circle of Sisters' by Judith Flanders
In the bibliography section at the back of the book there are numerous excellent sources for you to pursue.

No, Rossetti, Burne Jones et al did not encourage their wives and female companions in their art. Flander's book is useful here as it quotes letters and diaries, from the women themselves, and revealing, from the men, builds a sad picture of the Victorian male!

I'm not sure about using amazon as a source for books. Try your library and request biographies. The novels I've read were new age - 2 ghastly ones -a good feminist one in total support of Lizzie, a good one looking at their relationship from the outside, and and a mystery which called her poems and sketches second rate!

And I think you ought to look at David Cecil's book on the painters and certaily read Rossetti's letters which were collected and published by his own family and also by a later critic.
 

donroc

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"Donroc, what's a stained glass attitude exactly?"

Teluete, it was a line from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta satirizing the affectations of the Pre Raphaelites' admiration for things Medieval.
 

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Siddal was ill for a long time thanks to posing for Millais' Ophelia. He had her lay in a tub of water and it got very cold. She was apparently in there a long time and had pneumonia afterwards and never fully recovered her health. It is thought by many scholars that this is when she began taking laudanam

Also contributing to her depression was the fact that their ten year engagement wasn't a continuous engagement. They would get engaged and then he would break off with her repeatedly.

The one who encouraged her writing was John Ruskin. He was her patron (and he also apparently hounded Rossetti about marrying Siddal and condemned his treatment of her.

I think a more interesting question in this is why she stayed with him. In other areas of life she showed herself willing to take risks. She had supporters and patrons. She didn't have to stay with him. She chose to. There must have been a reason.

ETA: Here is a website completely devoted to the life and art of Elizabeth Siddal.
 

StevenJ

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Lizzie's art was middling at best (I say this without bias, as I love Pre-Raphaelite art...even Gabriel's art is technically poor compared to Millais' work) but she was encouraged by others, Rossetti & Ruskin amongst them.

Gabriel & Lizzie's story easily lends itself to fiction, though it has to be a tale of obsession in order to 'snare' the reader, in my opinion; there is definitely a 'hothouse' atmosphere to their love, and a writer of fiction can exploit this. And yes, even though Gabriel played around with other women, it would be true to say that Lizzie haunted him & his art...even before she died. The ingredients of a good story are all there for the taking, Teleute. :)


Although it's nonfiction, I would recommend 'Pre-Raphaelites in Love' by Gay Daly:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1582880271/?tag=absolutewritedm-20
 

Teleute

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Thanks SO much for the book recommendations, y'all. I'm ordering them today.

It sounds like whether Rossetti encouraged Lizzie's art is a matter for debate... I'll see if I can get to the bottom of that. Also, I gotta Rossetti's obsession with his ambivalence over marriage... there's gotta be a better explanation than him fearing pissing off his parents.
 

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The following is merely my opinion, and possibly has no proper merit:

Dante Alghieri had a profound influence on Gabriel's thinking, and was responsible for DGR's 'vision' in many ways...Given that Gabriel made the story of Dante and Beatrice the foundation of his artistic world, could it be that Lizzie was lessened in Gabriel's eyes once they had slept together? The unattainable beloved was then perhaps sullied, yet it was essential (to Gabriel's mind, and art) that Lizzie/Beatrice remained the one who was 'worshipped from afar' - this contradiction perhaps spoiled Gabriel's love for Elizabeth...indeed, it ruined Gabriel; incidents in which he appeared to display heartlessness (as when he recovered the poems he had buried with Lizzie) were not as callous as they seem - they were the actions of a man who had lost his soul, his raison d'etre, and knew it...check the lines from this poem ('Bride Song') by DGR's sister, Christina Rossetti:

Too late for love, too late for joy,
Too late, too late!
You loitered on the road too long,
You trifled at the gate:
The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate;
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate;
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.


Incidentally, any novel featuring DGR must feature, in a minor role, Charles Augustus Howell, Rossetti's agent...an absolute charlatan, incorrigible liar, and the image of Gabriel's more base attributes, perhaps.
 

StevenJ

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Addenda to the above: I'm not seeking to make excuses for Gabriel's bad behaviour. While he was, admittedly, a typical male in many negative respects, I honestly believe that his artistic vision held greater importance for him than for other Pre-Raphaelite artists, and this influenced his behaviour, for good and bad.

In regard of the contradiction between the ideal, unattainable woman of his art & the available women of his reality, well, Pre-Raphaelite art is full of these contradictions - Burne-Jones was obsessed with it yet, on the whole, managed to seperate his real life & his artistic one; Gabriel could not, and this explains Lizzie's tragic end, and indeed his own downfall.
 

Teleute

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The following is merely my opinion, and possibly has no proper merit:

Dante Alghieri had a profound influence on Gabriel's thinking, and was responsible for DGR's 'vision' in many ways...Given that Gabriel made the story of Dante and Beatrice the foundation of his artistic world, could it be that Lizzie was lessened in Gabriel's eyes once they had slept together? The unattainable beloved was then perhaps sullied, yet it was essential (to Gabriel's mind, and art) that Lizzie/Beatrice remained the one who was 'worshipped from afar' - this contradiction perhaps spoiled Gabriel's love for Elizabeth...indeed, it ruined Gabriel; incidents in which he appeared to display heartlessness (as when he recovered the poems he had buried with Lizzie) were not as callous as they seem - they were the actions of a man who had lost his soul, his raison d'etre, and knew it...check the lines from this poem ('Bride Song') by DGR's sister, Christina Rossetti:

Too late for love, too late for joy,
Too late, too late!
You loitered on the road too long,
You trifled at the gate:
The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate;
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate;
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.


I've been thinking the same thing, though not explicitly in terms of sex, but rather the general disparity between the ideal and the real (as you mention later).

To a certain extent this is just a common trait of people, but where the pre-Raphaelites go further is by basically worshiping dead women--Ophelia, Beatrice--the ultimate in unattainability. And it's ironic that in death Elizabeth became that much more like Beatrice. It seems like some kind of bizarre mind-f***ing wish fulfillment.

Incidentally, any novel featuring DGR must feature, in a minor role, Charles Augustus Howell, Rossetti's agent...an absolute charlatan, incorrigible liar, and the image of Gabriel's more base attributes, perhaps.

Thanks for the info!
 

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To a certain extent this is just a common trait of people, but where the pre-Raphaelites go further is by basically worshiping dead women--Ophelia, Beatrice--the ultimate in unattainability.

I would imagine that many writers have posited a Freudesque interpretation of this^ behaviour, but I'm wondering if this seemingly 'unnatural' (read: 'unhealthy') trait is actually natural for a certain type of artist, an extension of the desire to capture beauty in freeze-frame, devoid of the imperfections of motive, animated life; still life indeed...
 

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Another POV to consider would another woman who is enlisted as a model. The Rossettis could become a foil for the type of marriage that she doesn't want. She could be the outsider looking into a world that at first appears attractive, but ultimately destructive.
 

Teleute

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I would imagine that many writers have posited a Freudesque interpretation of this^ behaviour, but I'm wondering if this seemingly 'unnatural' (read: 'unhealthy') trait is actually natural for a certain type of artist, an extension of the desire to capture beauty in freeze-frame, devoid of the imperfections of motive, animated life; still life indeed...

It's very Freudian, isn't it? It's like the death drive but turned outward and then back inward. Or something. It's late.

Another POV to consider would another woman who is enlisted as a model. The Rossettis could become a foil for the type of marriage that she doesn't want. She could be the outsider looking into a world that at first appears attractive, but ultimately destructive.

That is an awesome idea. I'm sure that a lot of young women wanted to be Lizzie. And I'm sure there are a lot of pre-Raphealite models in the footnotes of history with few known facts about their lives.
 

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There's an interesting article here:

http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25336-2315620,00.html

...which examines Lizzie's exhumation & its effect on Rossetti.

'Poems (1870), which was astonishingly successful and went into five editions in its first year, would always be tied, in Rossetti’s mind, to the disturbed ground of its provenance. That ground remained an object of horror and dread to the end. “Let me not on any account be buried at Highgate”, he begged his brother, years later.'
 

StevenJ

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...and here's a fascinating article on Pre-Raphaelite art by my favourite scholar, Camille Paglia. Though heavily influenced by Freud, Paglia has some very interesting views, I feel:

'Take Beata Beatrix (1863), where dead Elizabeth Siddal, a clairvoyant Beatrice, prays to the divinized version of herself with closed eyes. She is like Shelley's android Hermaphrodite, murmuring and smiling to itself with sealed eyes. As I said of Nefertiti, impersonality or emotional lifelessness in a woman is an masculinizing abstraction. Siddal's Decadent androgyny resides in her solipsistic self-embowerment, her eerie aura. Decadence is about dead ends. The one medievalism Rossetti retains in his late period is Dante's grandiose cultism of dead Beatrice.'

27141943_BeataBeatrixL.jpg


Article: http://privat.ub.uib.no/bubsy/astro.htm
 

Teleute

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That ground remained an object of horror and dread to the end. “Let me not on any account be buried at Highgate”, he begged his brother, years later.'

Now THAT is interesting.

Steve, I'm always looking for an excuse to read more Camille Paglia! She and Edward Said are my favorite scholars.

Oh, and don't worry about assisting, I'm just sitting on my hands here until my books come in and the university library opens back up in January... They have Rossetti's collected letters there.

ETA: And I don't mean that to say that it's not awesome when people bring up ideas and character perspectives, because it is. I just mean that I now possess the tools to do the primary and secondary research, thanks to you guys' awesome input.
 
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