The ephemeral life of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood belies the importance of an organization that grows from and transcends its originally limited aesthetic principles and circumscribed credo. The founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 really marks the beginning of a movement that metamorphizes into Aestheticism/Decadence. It is the purpose of this dissertation to demonstrate that, from its inception, Pre-Raphaelitism is the first English manifestation of Aestheticism/Decadence. Although the connection between Pre- Raphaelitism and the Aesthete/Decadent movement is proposed or mentioned by several writers, none has written a coherent justification for the viewing of Pre-Raphaelitism as the starting point for English Decadence This dissertation attempts to establish the primacy of Pre-Raphaelitism in the development of Aestheticism/Decadence.

Le but de ce travail, consacré à la poésie de Christina Rossetti, est de s’éloigner du prisme interprétatif biographique qui est devenu la norme depuis sa mort en 1894. Cette étude, qui repose sur un examen des choix prosodiques et formels, montre que la voix poétique est avant tout une construction. Identifier le miroir à l’intérieur du texte dévoile des éléments essentiels pour comprendre la relation complexe qui se joue entre identité et altérité et qui, à maints égards, définit le style de Rossetti. L’étude des voix qui se font entendre dans son oeuvre poétique, qu’elles soient intertextuelles ou fictionnelles, révèle comment Rossetti parvient, par un usage unique de la répétition, à créer une voix harmonieuse et intemporelle à partir de la diversité et de la contradiction. Mais malgré une première impression de régularité, le principe répétitif est une source de redéfinition permanente qui nie la notion d’origine ou de version définitive. La re-présentation, la différance, et les réécritures incessantes offrent au lecteur un texte qui lui échappe sans cesse. Ce refus de la finitude pointe vers une autre ambition, celle d’atteindre un au-delà non plus religieux — nombre de ses poèmes expriment le désir de ne faire qu’un avec le divin — mais poétique : à travers la relation intime entre Dieu, le poète, et le texte ; par la manipulation de la forme, que le traitement du sonnet illustre ; et enfin grâce à un usage renouvelé des mots. Anglaise aux origines italiennes, Rossetti introduit au sein de la voix poétique un bilinguisme source d’interactions qui aboutissent à une langue hybride et à un rapport aux mots débarrassé de tout automatisme pour acquérir une expressivité nouvelle. / The purpose of this work, which is dedicated to Christina Rossetti’s poetry, is to step away from the biographical bias which has been the norm in the criticism about Christina Rossetti since her death in 1894. This study, based on the close analysis of the prosodic and formal choices, shows that the poetical voice is above all a construction. Finding the mirror within the text reveals important elements to understand the complex relationship between identity and alterity which, in many ways, defines Rossetti’s style. The examination of the voices that can be heard within her poems, may they be intertextual or fictional, shows how Rossetti manages to create a harmonious and timeless voice out of what strikes as diverse and contradictory. However, despite its apparent regularity, the work, through repetition, undergoes a constant self-redefinition negating the notion of origin or definite version: re-presentation, différance, and perpetual re-writing give the reader a text that keeps eluding him/her. This refusal of finitude hints at another ambition, that of reaching a “beyondˮ which is no longer religious — many of her poems express a wish to make one with the divine — but poetical: through an intimate relationship between God, the poet and the text; through the manipulation of the form, which Rossetti’s treatment of the sonnet examplifies; and finally through the poet’s renewed use of words. As an English poet with Italian origins, Rossetti inserts her bilingualism within the poetical voice and thereby creates interactions that result in a hybrid language and a relationship to words freed from habit and automatic reflex to reach enhanced expressivity.