Blessed Damozel as Pre-Raphaelite poem

              Introduction

The Pre-Raphaelite Movement is an important landmark in the history of English literature. In 1810 Cornelius and Querbeek, the two German painters, founded a society called the German Pre-Raphaelite Brethen. The epithet "Pre-Raphaelite" was applied to all those painters who came before Raphael. They found sweetness, beauty and sincerity in the painters before Raphael. In 1848, D.G. Rossetti, W.H. Hunt and John Millais formed a Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. Rossetti himself was not only a writer but he was also a painter. As a result, the Pre-Raphaelite insisted on keen observation of nature and revival of the traditions of the past painters. In short, they wanted to make literature appealing.
The dominant characteristics of Pre-Raphaelite poetry include, among others are 1. a medieval emphasis on setting, mood, and vocabulary and subjects that are correspondingly morbid, melancholy or poignant; 2. Spenserian like sounds and elaborate psychological states and complex poetic structures; e. Symbols that are both mysterious and ending toward the supernatural (ironically) coupled with fidelity of realism emphasizing colour and light/darkness; 4. and an emphasis on description that results in corresponding emphasis on length.
"The Blessed Damozel" is perhaps the best known poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Applying pre-raphaelite principles, Rossetti wrote "The Blessed Damozel" as a poignant, uncomplicated depiction of the kind of innocent young love that flourished in the days of the chivalric code. The poem presents romantic, dreamlike atmosphere as a virginal young woman - claimed recently by death - stands at the threshold of heaven pining for the young man she left behind while he likewise fines for her on earth.
Like his painting this poem is also characterized by opulence and sensuality, qualities that brought on attacks from critics in his own time but earned admiration and enduring popularity among later readers. This poem is on the subject of unrealised love broken off by the death of a blessed damozel. This subject is melancholy and morbid one replete with detailed description.
The Pre-Raphaelite elements in the poem can be described briefly as follows:

a. Medieval Outlook
The key term in the title, Damozel , is an archaic word for damsel (maiden, unmarried woman). Other archaic words with the same meaning for damosel, damoiselle, and damoisele. All of these words descend from the old French word dameisele. Rossetti's use of damozel perfumes the poem with an air of mediaeval romance.

    "The blessed damozel lean'd out
     From the Golden bar of heaven."

The adjective blessed suggest that the demozel deserves recognition as a saint. In Roman Catholic theology, a deceased candidate for sainthood receives the title Blessed before his or her name. Of course, the word may also simply signify her goodness and holiness.

b. Vivid, Visual Presentation
Simplicity of description, literary artistry to make paras and expressions delineate pictures as palpably sensuous as pictures painted with brush and colour, richness of details, enough poetic symbolism to suggest spirituality at the same time, mark the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelites, of which Rossetti's 'The Blessed Damozel' is a wonderful specimen. Before we are through the first three stanzas of the poem, we are in full possession of the figure of the blessed girl in heaven, who is as much as spiritual existence as a physical one.
   
   "Her eyes we're deeper than the depth
    Of waters still'd at even;
    She had three lilies in her hand
    And the stars in her hair were seven."

The details of the exact look of the placid calm of the wonder in her eyes, her symbolical adornment with three lilies in her hand and seven stars in her hair, a rose on a white silken dress and the golden yellow profusion of hair along her back - all these taken together are the acme of word painting - at once sensuous and spiritual. It is indeed a wonderful achievement. The bar she leans on becomes warm in contact with her bosom.
There is similarly a fine picturesque presentation of the shrine of God, occult, withheld, untrod, but made palpable by the light that flows out like a stream cleansing all the impurities of the souls that bathe in it. The bowering Tree of life has its symbol of that Dove that is sometimes felt to be, the touch of whose wings raises the holy name of God audibly. The grove where Mother Mary sits with her five maidens with bound locks and garlanded foreheads makes another picture.

c. Aestheticism
Another interesting characteristic of the conception is that it is poetic and not religious though the elements and details that enter into the presentation are mostly taken from the Bible or are based on Biblical ideas. It is aesthetic romanticism and not any religious spirit that makes the charm of the poetry that is in the poem. This sensuous aesthetic superstructure built from imagination is yet a recreation of life as it was lived in the middle ages. In that age of faith and love of romance and adventure, life as lived in heaven after death was conceived to be as real as that lived on the earth. The four square city of the God was believed to have the idealised amenities of earnest life on earth.

d. Sensuousness
Not less remarkable is the verbal beauty which is as sweetly melodious as that of Tennyson in which lyrics and descriptive pieces where Tennyson deliberately makes thought sub-ordinate to literary artistry. Rossetti in this poem as well as in several others shows besides sensuousness and picturesqueness a power of narrative; for, after all, he tells us a well-knit brief story of the doings, longings, sorrows and ultimate disappointment of an ardent young lover. In the ultimate analysis of the poem is a well-told story. We close the poem with the pitiable picture of the blessed damozel.

   "cast her arms along the global barriers, 
    and laid her face between her hands."

The picture is so complete and so human that Rossetti needed not have added the words, "And wept".

e. Sound and Sense
Pre -Raphaelite poetry is rich not only in pictorial quality but also in the musical. The trouble is that some Pre-Raphaelite, particularly Swinburne, go to excess in both. Rossetti's poetry is a model of well- manipulated music, neither too rich not too austere. He does not, indulge in alliteration and onomatopoeia to the extent as Swinburnedoes. Rossetti was a successful metrical artist and he effectively made use of many stanzaic forms of his own invention. His useof various ballad measures is also very happy. He also use alliteration in his poems.

   " She scare could see the sun."

    " The stars can in there spheres."

               Conclusion

In a nutshell, we can conclude that "The Blessed Damozel" is a Pre-Raphaelite poem. It contains the characteristics of the Pre-Raphaelites such as medieval outlook, vivid visual presentation, aestheticism, sensuousness, sound and sense. So "The Blessed Damozel" is a good specimen of Pre-Raphaelite poetry.