Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Late Victorian Sonnet Sequence

Dr. John Holmes is Lecturer at the School of English and American Literature, University of Reading, UK.

• Contents: Preface; Introduction: Rossetti, the sonnet sequence and the late Victorian self; Dante Gabriel Rossetti's inclusiveness: method and meaning in The House of Life; The sons of Gabriel; Christina Rossetti replies: Monna Innominata and Later Life; From sexuality to sexualities: Marzials, Barlow, Blunt and Symonds; Female identity in transition: Gregory, Webster and Newmarch; Structures of the self: dialectic and myth in John Addington Symonds's Animi Figura; From Rossetti to Rupert Brooke: the self and the nation; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

'Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Late Victorian Sonnet Sequence is a probing study of an important and understudied late-Victorian poetic tradition, in which John Holmes demonstrates the importance of the Rossettis as models for later writers' examination of sexuality and uses of sonnet sequences to express homoerotic as well as heterosexual sentiments-Augusta Gregory's poignant poetic expressions of love for Wilfred Scawen Blunt, for example, and Rosa Newmarch's inditement of her love for a married friend in her sequence Horae Amoris.' Florence Boos, Professor of English, University of Iowa '... a solid and well-documented case for the importance of Rossetti...' Times Literary Supplement ’... provides a fascinating account of poets and poems which have been almost entirely forgotten... by recovering their works and setting them in the context of so many other Rossetti-inspired sonnet sequences, Homes enriches our understanding of the whole field of fin-de-siècle poetry.’ The Year's Work in English Studies ’It is exhilarating to encounter such a wealth of material and John Holmes should be warmly congratulated for bringing such a rich collection of poetry back into view and for his thorough, well-informed, and insightful commentaries and contextualizations... Holmes's book is an excellent contribution to the critical literature on Rossetti and on late Victorian sonnet sequences, and deserves to be widely read.’ Modern Language Review