WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI AS CRITIC: A DIGITAL, ARCHIVAL ANALYSIS By CHRISTOPHER LEE MANNO Bachelor of Arts, 1977 Virginia Military Institute Lexington, Virginia Master of Arts, 1981 Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, Michigan Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of AddRan College of Liberal Arts Texas Christian University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2013 Copyright by Christopher Lee Manno 2013 Manno ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This dissertation was made possible by the generous, steadfast support and encouragement of Dr. Linda K. Hughes, plus a lifetime of mentoring and friendship from Dr. Thomas W. Davis. Manno iii TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ………………………………………………………..….…. 1 II. Biographical Context …..…………………………………………..….…. 3 III. Current Rossetti Scholarship ………………………………………….…. 12 IV. Background ………………………………………………………………. 14 V. The Collected Articles …………………………………………………… 21 VI. Project Components ……………………………………………………… 22 VII. Analysis ………………………………………………………………….. 26 VIII. Findings and Conclusions …………………………………………….….. 92 IX. Appendix 1: Annotations ………………………………………….…….. 111 X. Appendix 2: Current Scholarship on Rossetti’s Criticism …………….… 385 XI. Appendix 3: Charts ……………………………………………………… 388 XII. Works Cited ……………………………………………………………... 402 XIII. Vita XIV. Abstract Manno iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1, Article Distribution by Year ………………………………………. 30 Figure 2, Subjects, Modes and Rhetoric 1851-1909 ………………………… 31 Figure 3, Publication by Numbers 1851-1909 .……………………………… 32 Figure 4, Publication by Percent 1851-1909 ………………………………… 33 Figure 5, Academy Articles Publication Distribution ……………………….. 33 Figure 6, Art Principle Article Distribution …………………………………. 34 Figure 7, Art Principle Article Rhetorical Modes …………………………… 36 Figure 8, Academy articles subject distribution ……………………………… 50 Figure 9, Comparison of Art and Literature Academy vs. Total Publication … 51 Figure 10, Academy Article Rhetorical Modes …………………………….… 52 Figure 11, Art Article Rhetorical Modes ………………………………….…. 58 Figure 12, Polemical Article Sequence ……………………………………… 60 Figure 13, Exhibition Notices Over Time …………………………………… 65 Figure 14, Publication Distribution of Royal Academy-Related Articles …… 67 Figure 15, Review Subjects after Academy ……………………………….…. 77 Figure 16, Rossetti Publication as Editor ………………………………….… 79 Figure 17, Rossetti Family Editions ……………………………………….… 80 Figure 18, Post-Academy Modes ………………………………………..…… 81 Figure 19, Critical and Rhetorical Modes Before 1879 ……………………... 82 Figure 20, Historical Mode Subjects ………………………………….…...… 83 Figure 21, Article Distribution by Year ……………………………………… 93 Figure 22, Article Subjects …….………………………………………..…… 96 Manno v Figure 23, Modes Over Time …….………………………………………… 97 Figure 24 Modes Through The Academy Years …….……………………… 98 Figure 25, Post-Academy Modes …………………………..………………. 100 Figure 26, Critical Articles 1851-1909 …………………………..…………. 101 Manno 1 Introduction The periodical commentaries of William Michael Rossetti present a dynamic, detailed picture of British art, culture and criticism interacting in mid- to late-century Victorian England. Rossetti wrote with authority on matters of art and literature as the staff critic for several influential periodicals, as a guest commentator in lengthy articles examining issues of art and literature in established literary journals, and as a regular writer of published letters to various editors of widely-read publications. Rossetti was the linchpin of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), a breakaway movement of British artists that began in the 1840s, as well as at the center of a family of renowned artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti (Thirlwell William and Lucy 263). Rossetti published criticism extensively, regularly and consistently from 1848 through 1909, creating a broad chronology of critical arguments and artwork evaluations that reflect the ongoing cultural and aesthetic discussions of the time, in the 211 signed articles that I have collected for this study. Moreover, Rossetti left volumes of supporting materials in the form of letters, memoirs and journals. These characteristically detailed writings corroborate, describe and explain the situational factors leading to the rhetorical aim of his criticism, as well as his firsthand associations with cultural figures such as Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning, Sir John Everett Millais and many of the dominant British (and American) artists, critics, writers, poets, gallery owners and exhibitors, publishers and editors of his time. These relationships not only shaped his critical outlook, but also influenced the culture of the Victorian art world, as art reviewers and critics like Rossetti educated the public, forming Manno 2 both expectations for and understanding of art and literature for the growing middle-class (L’Enfant 8). Rossetti’s work offers a thorough and well-documented case study of culture formation and valuation as it evolved over the course of half a century. Personalities, principles and competing schools and movements interact on the pages of Rossetti’s criticism, as well as in the back-story documented in his wide-ranging letters, journals and memoirs. In order to understand Rossetti as critic in a new and meaningful way, this study plots out each of the 211 collected articles as individual waypoints on the critical path Rossetti traced through the long and winding course of nineteenth century criticism. Each article is analyzed and catalogued based on four parameter, including the subject of the article, the mode in which Rossetti operates (for example, “critic” or “historian”), and rhetorical design Rossetti employs. Wherever possible, additional supporting documents such as letters, journals and memoirs are linked to each annotation. In the microscopic sense, each article is closely examined and categorized as it stands alone. In the macroscopic sense, each article then is placed into the chronological context where the totality of intent and effect can be sorted and analyzed from several deliberate perspectives. This digital resource enables, as just one example, an analysis of the questions “what are the predominant modes of criticism, and when and how are they employed by Rossetti?” In addition, what supporting documentation exists that contributes to the understanding of the particular critical article? Given the number of variables possible (date, publication, topic, theory, author mode and rhetorical approach), multiple patterns of meaning can be formed by the systematic sorting of the 211 assembled articles. Manno 3 Once sorted, each article in a grouping is unpacked with its components and supporting data, while the entire picture composed of such minutely examined and documented pixels forms a detailed and wide-angle view of one significant nineteenth century critic in action. Similar sorting and analysis could be done based on publication title, subject matter, and argument mode, producing hundreds of organized and validated comparisons based on such meaningful facets of nineteenth century culture and criticism. The end result is that emerging patterns of sanction, valuation, rhetorical design and reaction present a fine-grained, dynamic picture of British art and literature growing and changing. Biographical Context In terms of social class and financial status, Rossetti came from outside of the sphere of societal privilege and requisite formal education normally associated with participation in the cultural and aesthetic valuations of art and literature. In his own words, the entire Rossetti family was typically “hard up” financially for most of his early years (Reminiscences 1:28). Nonetheless, his family lineage situated him at the epicenter of an intellectual and artistic vortex that produced several major figures in British art and literature, including his brother, painter and poet Dante Gabriel and his sister, the poet Christina Georgina. From William and Dante Gabriel’s foundational involvement in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) developed an ever-widening circle of associations with artists, poets, writers and critics, including Ruskin, Tennyson, Whitman, Arnold, Browning, Swinburne and many of the socially and culturally influential figures of the Victorian era. Rossetti’s father, Gabriel Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti, “a poet, and constitutionalist in Naples, and a political refugee in England,” was a professor of Italian at King’s College (Reminiscences 1:6). Rossetti describes typical evenings in the household featuring frequent Manno 4 vigorous political and literary discussions between his father and his associates that he and his siblings were allowed to observe and absorb (Reminiscences 1:11). The senior Rossetti propounded a radical theory that the writings of Dante and Petrarch were deliberately anti- Christian, a premise so confrontational that after he died, his widow Francis Rossetti burned the entire remaining stock of his published books on the topic, even though those texts were one of the few items of remunerative value left in his meager estate (Reminiscences 1:70). Owing to his father’s income and connections as a tutor, teacher and professor, Rossetti attended Kings College with his brother, studying the normal curriculum leading to higher university education, and he states that he mostly mirrored his older brother Dante Gabriel in habits of reading and exploration in art and literature. Rossetti described his early years as filled with the reading of the Bible,