Religious Mysticism In Pre-raphaelite Poetry

Pre-Raphaelitism is one of the artistic movements at a small scale which fall into thepost-Romanticism in the Victorian era. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood guided by DanteGabriel Rossetti urged artists to reject academicism and return to the medieval honesty,which helped to lay a solid foundation for the later Aesthetic movements in England. ThePre-Raphaelite poetry was a special genre in that it was not an independent literary trend,but a sister art to the Pre-Raphaelite painting. The major poets in this school include DanteGabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne and George Meredith.With regard to the theme of their poetry, it often revealed a conscious medievalism and wasfrequently imbued with an overall religious tone and moody mysticism. Nevertheless, thepoets’ sensuous and symbolic narrative verse rich in pictorial detail attracted no lessnegative comments than praises at that time. Given this point, there exist different voicesregarding the artistic value of this genre in the literary field. In the author’s view, if theprejudice that arises from cultural and value difference can be discarded, a common pathtowards the Truth will be discerned which is shared by this group of poets, that is, religiousmysticism–a mysticism inherent in the western literature. Therefore, based on theinteraction between religious mysticism and poetry, this paper will give a study on thethematic issue in terms of the genre’s spiritual and emotive trend.There are two motivations of writing this paper: firstly, disputes on the sensuousnarrative and elegiac tone in the Pre-Raphaelite poetry prevent the systemic introductionand research of this artistic genre in China, which creates a gap in the readers’ aestheticknowledge; secondly (also the critical point), because of the cultural difference, westernmysticism is somewhat abstruse to most of the Chinese readers, so that the mystic moodand religious sentiments reflected in the western literature is beyond their grasp, let alonemental acceptance. While religious mysticism is a universal spiritual existencetranscending culture and belief, the author of this paper aims to awaken modern people’sawe towards the unknown-a religious and mystic feeling inherent in people’s heart eversince the dawn of the mankind.This paper is composed of five parts. The first chapter gives an overview of this literary school and its literature review meanwhile discusses the motivation of writing thepaper. The second chapter studies on the meaning and development of religious mysticismin order to lay a solid foundation for the analysis of the poetry in the later chapter. Thethird chapter attempts to analyze the spiritual experience based on the interrelationshipbetween religious mysticism and poetry. In the process of analysis, the spiritual experienceof religious mysticism is divided into three aspects: mystic search for beauty and love,mystic search for salvation and union, and mystic search for transcendence. The poets’lingering passion for earthliness and elegiac tone determines the tragic end of their mentalexploration. The fourth chapter studies on the importance of the religious mysticism inPre-Raphaelite Poetry culturally and socially in modern context. The fifth chapter makes aconclusion on the former chapters and besides, urges the literary world to discard theprejudice and re-evaluate Pre-Raphaelitism, so as to identify the artistic merits and spiritualhighlights in this special genre once recognized as “morbid and degenerate”. By this liberalway of understanding a specific trend free from cultural boundaries and moral judgment,the readers’ artistic vision will be broadened and their knowledge about the spiritual worldescalated accordingly.