Raising the Dead: Pre-Raphaelite poetry and painting in the spirit world
Abstract
Many members of the second generation Pre-Raphaelites practised various kinds of spiritualism in which the distance between the living and the dead was temptingly close. Rossetti was one of those and his short 'bogie' sonnet sequence 'Willowwood' has always resisted any complete critical explanation. But if placed in the context of some of his contemporary art works and both are related to his passion for spiritualism then the group takes on a new and curious meaning.
Speaker
Professor Barrie Bullen
Barrie Bullen MA PhD is Emeritus Professor in English Literature at the University of Reading and Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. His work encompasses both literary and visual culture of the nineteenth century and his publications include Byzantium Rediscovered (London, 2003) and European Crosscurrents: British Criticism and Continental Art 1810-1910 (Oxford, 2005). He is a well-known lecturer and broadcaster, has given a number of lecture series for OUDCE, and tutors on Rossetti for the department’s Masters programme in Literature and Arts.
