Relationship With Rossetti's Family
As Siddal came from a working-class family, Rossetti feared introducing her to his parents. Lizzie Siddal was the victim of harsh criticism from his sisters. Knowledge that his family would not approve the marriage contributed to Rossetti putting it off. Siddal appears to have believed, with some justification, that Rossetti was always seeking to replace her with a younger muse, which contributed to her later depressive periods and illness.
Rossetti's relationship with Siddal is explored by Christina Rossetti in her poem "In an Artist's Studio":
- One face looks out from all his canvases,
- One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
- We found her hidden just behind those screens,
- That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
- A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
- A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
- A saint, an angel -- every canvas means
- The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
- He feeds upon her face by day and night,
- And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
- Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
- Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
- Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
- Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
Read more about this topic: Elizabeth Siddal
Famous quotes containing the words relationship with, relationship, rossetti and/or family:
“Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn’t brotherly—who lived mostly under his parents’ roof ... who advocated one day’s work and six days “off” as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown ... is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“It is possible to make friends with our children—but probably not while they are children.... Friendship is a relationship of mutual dependence-interdependence. A family is a relationship in which some of the participants are dependent on others. It is the job of parents to provide for their children. It is not appropriate for adults to enter into parenthood recognizing they have made a decision to accept dependents and then try to pretend that their children are not dependent on them.”
—Donald C. Medeiros (20th century)
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;”
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)
“Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units.”
—Valerie Solanas (b. 1940)