Poetry and the Pre-Raphaelite Arts : Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris

Focusing on two of the most influential figures in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, this book explores new ways of considering art and literature together. Elizabeth Helsinger traces the unusually close relationship between the poetry and poetics of two poet-artists and their contemporary practice of visual art and design. Her study focuses on innovations encouraged by the interaction between the arts to reassess the importance of Pre-Raphaelitism in literary as well as art history. Using the concept of "translation" from one medium to another, Helsinger develops compelling analyses of particular works and of the shared concerns of Rossetti and Morris. She connects their aesthetic and social experiments to projects undertaken by others, and she demonstrates the impact of Pre-Raphaelite strategies on later poets and poetic theorists. Lively and illuminating, this book both offers and studies the pleasures of reading and viewing attentively.