"The Germ": Origins and Progenies of Pre-Raphaelite Interart Aesthetics (Cultural Interactions: Studies in the Relationship between the Arts)

It was in The Germ (1850), the first British magazine with an aesthetic manifesto, that the interart theories of the Pre-Raphaelites took shape. The thirteen young contributors advocated an ethical approach to art while at the same time acknowledging self-referentiality and meta-discoursivity. They defined the specificity of each mode of artistic expression while exploring the dynamic between word and image, moving from realism towards Symbolism and even anticipating Surrealism. The Aesthetes and Decadents were fascinated; the Modernists felt challenged. Later in the twentieth century a succession of reappraisals transformed the Pre-Raphaelites into a well-marketed group of eccentrics, but neglected the complexity of their cross-cultural, verbal/visual art. This study aims to explain why claims about the autonomy and interrelatedness of the arts, expressed in the form of a provocative monthly journal, proved so influential as to be a source of inspiration for the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine , The Century Guild Hobby Horse , The Yellow Book , The Savoy , and even for Modernist periodicals. Often regarded as a juvenile venture, The Germ was in fact a laboratory for expressive forms, themes, and ideas that had an enormous impact on the history of British culture. Contents List of Plates ix Note on the Authorship of the Text xi Introducing The Germ as a Juvenile Venture and a Major Cultural Enterprise 1 ‘A more enduring growth’: Pre-Raphaelitism after the Pre-Raphaelites 1 Pre-Raphaelitism in the Twenty-First Century 7 Chapter 1 - Origins and Propagations 11 Around The Germ 11 Retracing The Germ(s) 13 Bold Statements of Poetics 21 About The Germ 26 Chapter 2 - A Biographical Perspective on The Germ 41 Who and How 41 Editor, Author, Biographer: William Michael Rossetti, Custodian of The Germ 46 Tradition and Modernity: Frederic George Stephens 53 Earnestness in Art: John Lucas Tupper 57 ‘Something in him much beyond the commonplace’: John Orchard 62 One of the ‘Immortals’: Coventry Patmore and the Pre-Raphaelites 63 The Dolce Stil Novo in the Victorian Age: Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Chiaro dell’Erma 68 Aside: Ellen Alleyn, or, Christina Rossetti 74 A Major Minor Pre-Raphaelite: Thomas Woolner, Sculptor and Poet 83 A Romantic Mentor: William Bell Scott 85 An Of ficer and a Poet: Major Robert Calder Campbell 87 ‘Hardly a writing man’: James Collinson 88 Lost Promise of the Brotherhood: Walter Howell Deverell 90 True to History: Ford Madox Brown 92 Before Raphael: William Holman Hunt and the Truth of Early Italian Painting 94 Chapter 3 - Aesthetic Prose in The Germ: Moulding a Literary Mode 99 Defining ‘Aesthetic Prose’ 99 ‘Hand and Soul’ by D. G. Rossetti as the Prototype of Creative Aesthetic Prose 100 Critical Aesthetic Prose 112 Chapter 4 - Germinal Poetical Imageries: From Pre-Raphaelitism to the Fin de Siècle and Modernism 129 Germinal Poetry 129 Nature Transfixed 139 Shapes of Love 151 Thoughts about Finitude and Transcendence 162 Interart Osmosis: ‘Sonnets for Pictures’ by D. G. Rossetti 170 Chapter 5 - Legacies: The Germ as the Prototype of the Artists’ Magazine 175 The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (1856) 175 The Germ as a Model for Fin de Siècle Little Magazines: The Century Guild Hobby Horse (1884–1892), The Yellow Book (1894–1897), and The Savoy (1896) 197 The Germ in the Twentieth Century 212 Bibliography 221 Index of Names and Subjects 249