Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) was a poet and painter, and a leading spirit in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which was an attempt to bring the romantic spirit to a realm of art still dominated by decadent classicism. This second romanticism he applied to poetry, emphasizing the sensual touches that had been Keats’s hallmark. Rossetti, skillfully combined spiritual vision with sensuality.
The peculiarity of this “School of Carnal Poetry” is the effect obtained by attention to detail. Despite being too Victorian with intellectual and moral concerns, the result of Pre-Raphaeliteism was the reduction of the moral element. Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism was the offspring of Pre-Raphaeliteism.
The atmosphere of the poem presented here is more one of ‘religiosity’ than religion. Keats’s influence is evident throughout. The poem can be compared to some Pre-Raphaelite paintings to the reader’s good advantage.
Let me introduce the text of the poem before saying a few words about its pictorial quality.
the blessed maiden
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The wounded maiden peeked out (Ah, sweet! Even now, in that bird’s song,
From Heaven’s gold ingot; Don’t strain for their accents there,
His eyes were deeper than depth. Do you want to be heard? when those bells
Of still waters in the afternoon; Possessed the midday air,
She had three lilies in her hand, She didn’t strain her steps to get to my side.
And the stars in her hair were seven. Go down the whole echoing staircase?)
His robe, undone from clasp to hem, “I wish he would come to me,
He did not adorn carved flowers, because he will come,” he said,
But a white rose from the gift of Mary, “Have I not prayed in heaven? – on earth,
For the service used promptly; Lord, Lord, have you not prayed?
Her hair fell down her back. Aren’t two sentences perfect strength?
It was yellow like ripe corn And will I have to be afraid?
She seemed like it had barely been a day “When around her head the halo clings,
One of God’s showgirls; And he is dressed in white,
The wonder is not quite gone yet. I will take his hand and go with him.
From that immobile gaze of hers; To the deep wells of light;
Although, he left them, his day We will go down like a steam,
He had counted as ten years. And she bathe there in the sight of God.
(For one, it was ten years of years, “We two will be next to that shrine,
…Yet now, in this place, Occultism held back, stepping outside
Surely she bent over me, her hair Whose lamps wave continually
It all fell on my face….. With prayers sent to God;
Nothing: the autumnal fall of the leaves, And watch our old prayers, granted, melt away.
The whole year goes by at a good pace.) Each like a small cloud.
It was a bulwark of the house of God “We two will lie in the shadow of
That she was standing; That living mystical tree
By God built on the pure depth Within whose secret growth the Dove
which is the Space begun; Sometimes it feels like it’s
So high, looking down then As each leaf her feathers touch
I could barely see the sun. He says his name audibly.
He is in the sky, across the flood “And I myself will teach him,
Of ether, as a bridge. myself, lying like that,
Beneath, the tides of day and night The songs I sing here; than your voice
With flames and crests of blackness They will pause, silent and slow,
The void, as low as where the earth is And find some knowledge in every pause,
It spins like a restless mosquito. Or something new to know.”
Around him, lovers, newly acquainted (Alas! The two of us, the two of us, you say!
‘Amid the cheers of immortal love, yes, one you were with me
He spoke more and more among themselves Than once of old. But God will raise
Their names remembered from the heart; To endless unity
And the souls, ascending to God, The soul whose resemblance to your soul
They passed her like thin flames. Was it but her love for you?)
And still she bowed and bowed “We two,” she said, “we’ll search the groves
Charm outside the circle; Where is Mrs. Mary?
Until her bosom must have done And her five maidservants, whose names
The bar on which she leaned warm, are five sweet symphonies,
And the lilies lay asleep, Cecilia, Gertrudis, Magdalena,
Along his bent arm. Margarita and Rosalys.
From Heaven’s fixed place she saw “They sit in circles, with locks tied
time like a fiercely agitated pulse and adorned foreheads;
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strained on the flame-thin fabric
Inside the gulf to drill Weaving the golden thread,
his path; and now she spoke as when To make birth robes for them
The blood stars in their spheres. Who have just been born, being dead.
The sun was gone now; the coiled moon
It was like a little feather
fluttering away in the gulf; and now
She spoke through the calm weather,
His voice was like the voice of the stars.
I had when they sang together.
Continue to the right……
The power of pictorial painting came to Dante Gabriel Rossetti naturally, since he was not only a poet but also a painter. His poem has rightly been compared to Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Throughout, Rossetti has painted picture after picture with words instead of a brush, lending impeccably balanced vivid colors to his art.
He was the main poet who brought romantic spirits into the realm of art by giving them sensual and skilful touches. He combined spirituality with sensuality and his poetic imagery has the same definition of color and form as his paintings. Master as he was, he eminently managed to convey an intense mystical and spiritual impression through the very precision of his images.
This is one of Rossetti’s best and best known poems in which the pictorial imagination, the rich language, the richness of concrete details, the mystical medieval atmosphere and the tender passions have been created and painted not with the masterful strokes of the brush of a painter, but with precision. and magic words.
A estranged lover (The Blessed Maiden) in Heaven longs to be reunited with her beloved who has not yet died. She fervently hopes that God will grant her wish that the soul of her lover join her in heaven after her death. Therefore, she stands on the ramparts of heaven looking down on the earth and longing for the soul of her lover to float from her to join her.
Let us now consider Rossetti’s power to represent a myriad of images in his poem. For example, in verse one, Heaven is depicted as a castle far above and beyond the world system. The way in which Rossetti has described the periphery of Heaven is also quite picturesque. The phrase ‘Gold Bar’ is one such image that very effectively describes the golden barrier that surrounds Heaven. In the second stanza, the poet has described the hair of the Virgin Mary, saying that it is yellow like the color of ripe corn, and the comparison stimulates our senses like a beautiful painting. In the fourth stanza, when Rossetti describes the estranged lover’s state of mind on earth, he does so strikingly. His choice of words makes us see the whole romantic scene happening, so to speak, right before our eyes.
“Surely she leaned over me – her hair
It fell on my face. … … … …
Nothing: the autumn-fall of the leaves”.
In stanza nine, the poet’s words captivate us with their power to create mysterious images in our minds.
“From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a fierce fluttering pulse
Through all the worlds. ..”
As we read the previous lines, time seems to beat like a feverish pulse in the body of the universe.
The rich and graphic description of the Virgin Mary and her five assistants in the groves is striking; they are weaving the golden threads in a flame like white cloth to make birth robes for those who have just been born to a new life in Heaven. The painter-poet has used the word ‘White’ with great significance in the sense that this color has given an eternal medium to the entire poem.
