Dante Gabriel Rossetti
British poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, brother of Christina Georgina Rossetti, founded the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, a society, in England in 1848 to advance the style and spirit of Italian painting before Raphael (Raffaelo Sanzio); his known portraits and his vividly detailed, mystic poems, include "The Blessed Damozel" (1850).
This illustrator and translator with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais later mainly inspired and influenced a second generation of artists and writers, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. His work also influenced the Symbolists, a group of chiefly French writers and artists, who of the late 1800s rejected realism and used symbols to evoke ideas and emotions. He served as a major precursor of Aestheticism, an artistic and intellectual movement or the doctrine, originating in Britain in the late 19th century, that from beauty, the basic principle, derives all other, especially moral, principles.
“I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:--Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen PastTo signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;And Youth, with still some single golden hairUnto his shoulder clinging, since the lastEmbrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.Love's throne was not with these; but far aboveAll passionate wind of welcome and farewell”
“A Sonnet is amoment'smonument,—Memorial from theSoul's eternityTo one deaddeathless hour.”
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also call'd No-more, Too-late, Farewell”
“I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.”
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.”
“Sudden LightI have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. You have been mine before,— How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar Your neck turn'd so, Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore. Has this been thus before? And shall not thus time's eddying flight Still with our lives our love restore In death's despite, And day and night yield one delight once more?”
“Places that are empty of you are empty of life. ”
“The blessed damozel lean'd outFrom the gold bar of Heaven;Her eyes were deeper than the depthOf waters still'd at even;She had three lilies in her hand,And the stars in her hair were seven.”
“L'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle”
“Love, which is quickly kindled in the gentle heart, seized this man for the fair form that was taken from me, the manner still hurts me. Love which absolves no beloved one from loving, seized me so strongly with his charm that, as thou seest, it does not leave me yet”
“The Stealthy School of Criticism.”