[Book] Desperate Romantics

Yup, still diving into the world of the Pre-Raphaelites. This book, by Franny Moyle, left me feeling a little sad, though. The previous couple of books I'd read were specifically on Elizabeth Siddall and Fanny Cornforth, and while they did make me feel frustrated at the treatment of women in general at that time and them in particular, there were still a lot of gaps, a lot of things we still don't know, and I came away from both glad that someone had been prepared to do meticulous research on each, fill in some gaps, and give them an identity beyond 'muse', Lizzie as artist and Fanny as the woman who held Rossetti together, both things that really ought to have been recognised in their lifetimes. There was a note of celebration.

As a history of most of the major figures in the movement this book is necessarily more sketchy, because it's covering numerous people living complicated lives. The women largely fare better than the men as most of them – Siddall the obvious exception – are allowed to fade from view rather than coming to a more detailed end. (You can insert your own joke about the invisibility of older women here...) With the men, however, there's an overwhelming sense of decline, of passionate young men in their late teens and early 20s exploding with ideas and creativity, then perhaps a period of some comfort, but inevitably there is drama and unhappiness that leads to a sad demise. 

I finished the book a few days ago and I'm still feeling terribly sorry for Siddall and Rossetti (who admittedly doesn't seem to have shied away from provoking drama and brought a good chunk of trouble on himself, but had an awful later life and death nonetheless). Throw in Ruskin, the Morrises and the Burne-Joneses and it all gets rather fraught. That said, sad events such as deaths form pivotal points, whereas periods of joy such as painting the Oxford Union murals or decorating the Red House are simply lived through rather than changing everything, and it's also possible to see things negatively in hindsight that people at the time would have viewed positively. (Yes, everyone's numerous romances seemed to go awry, but surely in the moment those things were bliss?) So perhaps the focus on major events leaves less room for small – or even prolonged – happinesses.

Anyway, I think that's finished me for PRB biographies for the time being, though I'll make an exception if new material emerges on the women. I have been left with one burning question: given all the focus on Rossetti asking the desperately ill Elizabeth to marry him after a couple of years apart, in which time she'd studied art and carried on pursuing her own creative works, why did she say yes? It must have been love, but oh how I wish for both of them that she'd found someone else...