The Burdens of Body's Beauty: Pre-Raphaelite Representations Of
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 3-13-2010 12:00 AM The Burdens of Body's Beauty: Pre-Raphaelite Representations of the Body in William Morris's the Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858) and Algernon Swinburne's Poems Thomas A. Steffler The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Professor D.M.R. Bentley The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Thomas A. Steffler 2010 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Steffler, Thomas A., "The Burdens of Body's Beauty: Pre-Raphaelite Representations of the Body in William Morris's the Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858) and Algernon Swinburne's Poems" (2010). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 38. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/38 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE BURDENS OF BODY’S BEAUTY: PRE-RAPHAELITE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BODY IN WILLIAM MORRIS’S THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE, AND OTHER POEMS (1858) AND ALGERNON SWINBURNE’S POEMS AND BALLADS, FIRST SERIES (1866) (Spine title: The Pre-Raphaelite Body in the Poems of Morris and Swinburne) (Thesis Format: Monograph) by Thomas A. Steffler Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada Thomas A. Steffler 2010 THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO SCHOOL OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION Supervisor Examiners ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. D.M.R. Bentley Dr. David Latham ______________________________ Dr. Vladimir Hachinski ______________________________ Dr. Matthew Rowlinson ______________________________ Dr. Christopher Keep The thesis by Thomas Andrew Steffler entitled: THE BURDENS OF BODY’S BEAUTY: PRE-RAPHAELITE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BODY IN WILLIAM MORRIS’S THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE, OTHER POEMS (1858) AND ALGERNON SWINBURNE’S POEMS AND BALLADS, FIRST SERIES (1866) is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date__________________________ _______________________________ Chair of the Thesis Examination Board ii ABSTRACT This dissertation studies representations of the body in the first two published volumes of Pre-Raphaelite poetry, William Morris’s The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems (1858) and Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, First Series (1866). These two volumes (along with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 1870 Poems ) were disparaged as the work of the “Fleshly School of Poetry” by the critic Robert Buchanan in 1871, and this dissertation seeks to understand through close reading how the depiction of the body in the poetry of Morris and Swinburne so perturbed their contemporaries and why it continues to elude modern readers. Particularly, this study considers how representations of the body and its demands in these two works constitute a Pre-Raphaelite challenge to social, scientific, and aesthetic theories that involve sexuality, gender, and identity in relation to the body. The first chapter of the dissertation explains the development of an aesthetic of the flesh for the early Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which directly affects the way in which Morris and Swinburne would approach the problem of the body and perception in their poetry. This chapter also explains how Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on phenomenology inform the analysis of the Pre-Raphaelite body’s direct and active engagement with the world in poems of Morris and Swinburne. The second chapter focuses on Morris’s The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems and its depiction of the experiences of the body as they strike the perceiving subject, particularly in moments when the body comes under a sexual strain that complicates its standing with the soul. The third chapter focuses on Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads, First Series as a wide-ranging experiment in eroticism, and considers the volume’s treatment of desire and sexuality in the performance of identity through gender and memory. The final chapter iii summarizes and synthesizes the readings of Morris’s and Swinburne’s “fleshly” poems to place them within a continuum of changing attitudes towards the body and identity in the nineteenth century. Keywords: Morris, The Defence of Guenevere , Swinburne, Poems and Ballads , Pre- Raphaelite, Fleshly School, body, desire, sexuality, gender, identity, grotesque, taboo, Merleau-Ponty, phenomenology, Freud, memory, mourning, melancholia, poetry, painting. iv To Julie, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have a number of people who deserve thanks for their contributions, patience, and support during the research and writing of this dissertation. I thank my supervisor, Professor David Bentley, who first inspired my interest in Pre-Raphaelite studies, and then taught me what rigorous scholarship demands of researchers and writers. This dissertation has been like a “Flogging Block” to me at times, torturing and teaching me along the way, but also giving me a pleasure that Swinburne himself might have appreciated. Ultimately, I am very proud of this work, the quality of which owes much to Professor Bentley, his great store of knowledge, his conscientious regard for his graduate students’ work, and his keen attention to detail in all matters of scholarship and writing. I would also like to thank the committee members who took time read my work, intellectually engage it, and offer me a discussion more thought-provoking than I imagined my work could generate. So, I thank Professors Matthew Rowlinson, Christopher Keep, Vladimir Hachinski, and David Latham, whose comments and questions I have recorded and will keep to refine my ideas for future projects. While Professor Bentley was particularly involved in this project, there are numerous other professors at the University of Western Ontario to whom I owe debts of gratitude for the training I received there as a graduate student. I will mention one in particular who is the quintessential gentleman scholar: Professor Donald Hair. Professor Hair’s graduate seminar provided me with a solid base upon which to build my understanding of Victorian poetry and a mountain of notes that I now use as an instructor. No aspiring teacher could ask for a better model to emulate: his pedagogical secret—though no secret at all—was respecting students, vi who in turn respected him. The respect that he offered and received was neither simple nor gratuitous: it was a respect built on both the high expectations he had of students and the high expectations that his students were encouraged to have of him with every carefully crafted and polished lecture that he gave. This dissertation has held a number of people hostage over the years, and I would like to take a moment to honour their sacrifice. The final submission of this thesis frees my beautiful and brilliant wife, Julie, whose many weekends and days apart have been used to pay the ransom. Without her love, perseverance, fortitude, and editing, I could not have finished this work. Although it is but small recompense for all that she has done and sacrificed, I dedicate this work to her as a token of my love and gratitude. I thank my children: Gabriel for teaching me news ways to love during his short stay with us; Celia and Nathaniel for singing, dancing, and playing with me; and Eve for smiling so sweetly and taking us all to Bordeaux. My parents, Frank and Anne Steffler, also deserve special thanks. I have seen how their acts of kindness are often conducted without recognition because they do not seek it in their secret ministry of good deeds. I am grateful for all their help, open and secret, over the years. Their quiet but constant support in all that I do is the foundation upon which I have built my “House of Life.” In the same vein, I would like to acknowledge my brother, David, as one of the pillars in my house. He deserves thanks for the supportive role he plays in my life and for making me laugh from my belly. Although we are busy family men now and turning grey, I still like that we can get outside to play sometimes. vii Je remercie Florence Treadwell. I owe her an intellectual debt because it is her volume of poetry, Cleaving , that helped me think about Swinburne’s poetry with greater subtlety, which allowed me to frame one of my more important points of discussion in this thesis. I also owe her a debt of gratitude for her work as a very thorough editor of the final drafts this dissertation. The other debts I owe her are personal and speak to how she enriches my life, but they are too many to enumerate—I will simply say that I am very fortunate to have une belle mère , of whose company I could never grow tired. I thank Eugène Nshimiyimana, qui est mon vrai ami . His friendship has been an indispensible stay in my life, particularly in times that have been hard. He is a fine gentleman and scholar, a gifted writer, a heroic friend, and a lethal footballer