This project examines the influence of the emblem on the literature of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. My dissertation builds on the insights of such scholars as Lorraine Janzen Kooistra and D.M.R. Bentley, both of whom have noted the indebtedness of the Rossettis to the English emblem tradition, but I posit a more central role for emblem strategies in the Pre-Raphaelite movement by expanding the scope of emblem studies to include both normative emblems (visual-verbal tripartite constructions) and emblematic discourse that employs a strictly verbal strategy of representation. I mark the trajectory of the emblem through the Pre-Raphaelite movement by focusing on five key points: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's short-lived illustrated magazine, The Germ; the poetry and devotional prose of Christina Rossetti ( Goblin Market and Other Poems, The Prince's Progress and Other Poems, Called to Be Saints, Time Flies); Gerard Manley Hopkins' onomatopoetic theory of language (as expressed in "The Wreck of the Deutschland" and elsewhere); Dante Gabriel Rossetti's movement from confident belief in the divine and the signifying power of the devotional emblem to religious and representational uncertainty (in works such as "My Sister's Sleep" and The House of Life); and Algernon Charles Swinburne's challenging of the emblem's representational limits (in Chastelard and "Laus Veneris," as well as in other works). Put simply, the Pre-Raphaelite movement's use of emblematic aesthetic strategies traces an arc from the orthodox and logocentric through the uncertain and eccentric to the unorthodox and subversive. The consistent incorporation of emblem structures into the very diverse literature of this group points to the movement's rootedness in older traditions, calling into question the critical tendency to view Pre-Raphaelite literature as anticipating the modern. The presence of emblems in this literature also testifies to the emblem's astonishing endurance, flexibility, and usefulness as a tool for both rhetorical and moral-aesthetic ends.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/29906 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | McAlpine, Heather |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 439 p. |
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