From King Arthur to Sidonia the Sorceress: the Dual Nature of Pre-Raphaelite Mediaevalism

Abstract

Alice Chandler’s description of the mediaeval revival captures perfectly the ways in which this movement came to permeate and, ultimately, define certain aspects of the Victorian period. It could be argued, however, that ‘expressions of a medievalizing imagination’ (Chandler 1970, 1) were most extensively and self-consciously employed by the Pre-Raphaelites who, in their paintings and poetry, presented a heavily idealized view of the Middle Ages. It could also be said that the ‘sometimes contradictory ideas and programs’ found in the work of the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood stemmed from their employment, consciously and unconsciously, of two distinct definitions of the term gothic; ‘mediaeval as opposed to classical’ and ‘grotesque’. This second meaning is largely evident in the sub-text of their writings and visual arts, especially when these are read as veiled autobiography. With specific reference to William Morris and, to a lesser extent, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, then, this essay hopes to explore the dual nature of the gothic and, more widely, of Pre-Raphaelite mediaevalism itself.KeywordsDual NatureSacred TextIdealize VisionCard DealerTerrible ThingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.