Poetry in Painting: The Lyrical Voice of Pre-Raphaelite Paintings
An Edited Collection
Sophia Andres
Brian Donnelly
This interdisciplinary collection of essays seeks to offer new insights into Victorian culture and society through Pre-Raphaelite perspectives captured in the relationship between Pre-Raphaelite paintings and the poems which inspired them. Authors are invited to choose paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists and their associates that have been inspired by poems, or poems inspired by Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and discuss the means by which the textual is transfigured into the visual or the visual into the textual. The goal of this work is primarily, but not exclusively, twofold: (1) to explore the interpretive perspectives on paintings which poems disclose; (2) to examine the Victorian or modern, cultural or sociopolitical, concerns that inform visual and textual relations inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art.
Letters, reviews and journals may be used to convincingly reinforce the connections between poems and paintings. Through a textual and visual journey, this work should reflect an innovative approach to Pre-Raphaelite art and Victorian poetry. Of particular interest are paintings and poems which have not hitherto received substantial critical attention. Since this interdisciplinary work will address both scholarly and general audiences, writers are encouraged to avoid scholarly jargon and lengthy footnotes.
The collection is an international and egalitarian collaboration; we invite scholars of any level or discipline to submit an abstract.
Topics might include (but not limited to) the following:
- The Spiritual and the Material
- The Past in the Present
- Imperial Expansion
- Historical Indeterminacy
- National Identity
- Modernity
- Natural and Supernatural
- Rural Industrialization
- Fantasies of Utopia
- Social Changes
- Psychological and Ideological Conflicts
- Kaleidoscopic Visions
- Music in Poetry and Painting
- Rossetti’s Painted Poems
- Psychological Drama
- Transgressions of Spatial and Temporal Boundaries
- Mythologies
- Prostitution
- The Pre-Raphaelite Shakespeare
- The Pre-Raphaelite Dante
- Youth and Beauty
- Class Conflicts
- Shattered Illusions
- Romantic Longings
- Promiscuous Eroticism
- Gender Transgressions
- Social Entrapments
- Materialism
- Women’s Choices
- Vulnerable Domesticity
- Moments of Seduction
- Dream Visions
- Visionary Experiences
Abstract deadline: December 1, 2013. Please submit an abstract of 300-500 words and a brief CV to preraphaelites2013@gmail.com. Authors will be notified by February 3, 2014, whether or not their abstract has been accepted. The deadline for the full length chapter, if accepted, is May 30 2014. Chapters should be between 4,000-5,000 words in length, accompanied by an abstract of 200 words. Preliminary inquiries are welcome: kindly address them to preraphaelites2013@gmail.com