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Angela Thirlwell
Birkbeck College

William Michael and Lucy Rossetti: Outsider Insiders - The True Cosmopolitans

· 'Rossetti' - Name as Label - an exotic signifier in Victorian London society. But Dante Gabriel and Christina barely stepped out of England.

· I will argue that William and his wife Lucy Madox Brown differ from the better-known Rossettis as true cosmopolitans and genuine internationalists.

· Notions and implications of cosmopolitanism:

A. Aesthetics:

The Artist: Lucy Madox Brown exhibits paintings of literary subjects with foreign settings e.g. Ferdinand and Miranda, Romeo in the tomb of Juliet, and the seductive Magic Mirror which explores issues of travelling and separation. Her life describes a European arc, born Paris 1843, dies abroad, San Remo, Italy, 1894. Cosmopolitan today - she is exhibited in an international Exhibition in San Remo, 2000.

The Critic: William Rossetti promotes a new catholicity of taste. Construction of taste as an aspect of cosmopolitanism. His pivotal place in contemporary art-world - an original pre-Raphaelite 'Brother', keeper of P.R.B. Journal, prolific journalist on art and literature - democratiser of taste and cosmopolitan in practice as well as thought.

America: promotes 'Art News from London' in New York Crayon, 1855-6; Secretary to the Exhibition of British Art, New York, Philadelphia and Boston 1857-58.
Effectively makes Whitman's reputation in Britain, edits Poems by Walt Whitman, 1868. Edits Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier for Moxon's Popular Poets series as well as anthology of American Poems.

Italy: considers Italy 'my native country almost in equal degree with England' but refuses Italian State honour. Translates prose-arguments of DGR's version of Dante's Vita Nuova, 1861; translates Dante's Inferno as The Hell 1865; writes Dante and his Convito, 1910.
Jury member at First Venice Biennale, 1895; contributes entries on Italian painters for Encyclopaedia Britannica;
Examines Italian at Oxford, 1882, gives Taylorian Lecture on Leopardi, 1891, in same series as Mallarmé and Pater.

France: frequent and favourable reviewer of French art from Paris Exposition, 1855, to early Impressionists. (WMR visits Paris over 40 times, Alphonse Legros paints WMR's portrait, French friendships, WMR & Lucy at ease in French.)

Orientalism: Early promoter and collector of Japanese art, especially Hokusai.
Recognises importance of Whistler's Oriental influenced art; testifies on Whistler's behalf in the Ruskin v. Whistler libel trial, 1878.

Australia: Introduces Francis Adams' Tiberius, 1894, travels to Australia, 1897.

B. Politics:

Lucy and William are radical and cross-cultural in politics and religion ('agnostic before the word was invented'). Sharing admiration for Whitman and Shelley, both are Democratic republicans and socialists, oppose war and jingoism.

William's 50 Democratic Sonnets, mostly 1881 (not published until 1907) reflect worldwide perspective, cover American Civil War, Irish Famine, Crimean and Boer Wars, Unification of Italy, Paris Commune, freeing of Russian serfs, affairs in Poland, Austria and Hungary.
DGR pressurises Lucy to prevent William from publishing revolutionary Sonnets.

Anarchy: William signs petition, 1887, to spare seven Chicago anarchists condemned for terrorism.
Lucy and William allow their children to run The Torch, an international anarchist magazine, from a printing press at home.

Cosmopolitan at home: William continues his father's political tradition. Émigrés and dissidents gravitate to him.

C. Cosmopolitanism and pathology:

Lucy's continental wandering forced upon her by TB; constantly seeks a cure on French and Italian Rivieras.
Artistic career cut short but she writes a biography of Mary Shelley (also a European traveller)
Opinionated and intellectual, Lucy pours frustrated artistic ambitions into her children, educating them to write Greek plays at five, to learn European languages, dead and alive.