On this day in 1862, poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti returns from a night out with his fellow poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and finds his wife dead from an overdose of laudanum. He had married the beautiful model Elizabeth Siddal only two years earlier. Devastated by his lost, Rossetti buried the only complete manuscript of his poetry with her. The manuscript was later recovered and published eight years later, in 1870, 12 years before Rossetti's own death.
"Recovered"? The manuscript was recovered? As in, Dante Gabriel instructed some poor wretch to dig up the lady's coffin, pry it open, and snatch the precious manuscript out of her bony hands?
Nice going, D. G. Real romantic of you.
I always thought your sister Christina was the better poet, anyway.
6 comments:
First of all, I agree Chistina's was better poet than her brother.
But I beg some compassion from you: Dante suffered a sort of Hypomania, and he could be the best husband and the worst one one single minute after. That was the reason because of he used to sed Ellie to model to the Prerrafaelite Group.
After Ellie's death, he got worse. He passed his complete life painting her face over and over again. I suppose he buried his poems as an auto-lession, feeling guilty for her death. But maybe some years after, someone could have convinced him to recover the texts.
He was insane. Be compassionate, please.
Trully regards,
Blue Thing
Blue Thing, my post was meant to be humorous. I was making a jibe at his poetry, which I have never admired. (His lush, romantic paintings are another matter -- those, I like very much.)
I thought he went mad only at the very end of his life, but it sounds like you know much more about him than I do.
Blue Thing:
She was never referred to as "Ellie". She was always known as "Lizzie".
D.G.R. referred to her as "Guggums" and others in the PRB circle ocassionally referred to her as "The Sid".
You should visit LizzieSiddal.com for accurate info.
Hey, Anonymous... THANK YOU!!
Brenda, just remember I'm only an English Language Student. Sometimes, I can understand the speech _but not only the whole information. I've just disagreeded you about the 'bookseller matter', but of course with humour and... 'nice feeling'? :)
Indeed, Dante Gabriele was insane. He illthreatened his wife a lot. Along his widower life, he started to paint her dead wife's face everywhere. Of course I can't say DG was a good husband, and the creative genius isn't a excuse, but he was really insane.
A spanish romantic poet, Rosalia de Castro, was depressive, and asked for her sons to fire her poems when she was mortally ill. Fortunately, one of her nieces could save a few of her last works... I wonder if Mrs. de Castro would pass over her illness, maybe she had regreted her decission. If Humankind is complex, what about ill Humankind? _I'm writing a film script about insanity and insanes. I'm too sensitive to them nowadays.
Best regards _with my boss permission,
Blue Thing
Blue Thing, I did realize that English was not your first language. But I admire anyone who can learn to master it. It must be extremely difficult to learn English when we use idiomatic language so extensively.
I wasn't chiding you, dear friend. When I explained that my post was meant to be humorous I fully realized that there must have been something in my language that you didn't get.
By the way, I had to smile at your closing line.
It may be worse _I exchange bloglines with some people from Lisboa, Portugal. We quote our blogs and... it's not always what we thought we were quoting!
Thank you for your understanding. I like my own language. I like to teach Literature, but sometimes I get out of Curriculum and talk to the kids about foreign writers ;)
I like to learn english more than french. I feel better using it, reading and writing. I just like to communicate. Try to get the differences among languages, among people, in order to understand them. Virgina Wolf used to say that, if people wanted to look honestly towards their differences, Humankind would respect more itself. And Dom Quixote himself tried to understand arabic and hebrew in his times! I owe it to him, don't I?
Blessings
Blue Thing
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