Blessed Damozel(s): Ekphrastic Perspectives on Rossetti’s Poem and Painting

Abstract Ekphrasis – the representation of a work of art in terms of another art form – was originally the highest rhetorical exercise, requiring the verbal recreation of a picture or sculpture. The definition has broadened to include all kinds of ‘inter-art’ representation. Works of art depicting music (generically, or specific works) are familiar in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as are musical representations (as opposed to word-setting) of literary texts. But poems are less frequently rendered into painting, and the musical representation of graphic art is more a twentieth-century phenomenon. Siglind Bruhn’s Musical Ekphrasis (2000) mapped out the subject area, with particular attention to Debussy, but there have been few attempts to explore the topic in a musical context since then. This article seeks to explore a particular three-fold intersection of music, art, and poem. Dante Rosetti’s The Blessed Damozel exists both as a poem (first published 1851, revised until 1873) and a painting (1875–1878). The poem was set by Claude Debussy (1887–1888, re-orchestrated 1902), and by many British composers (one of which slightly pre-dates Debussy), and some from other Anglophone countries. These settings show a wide range of responses to Rossetti’s most popular and most frequently anthologized poem. Some try to situate it within the English oratorio tradition as opposed to Debussy’s perceived Wagnérisme, but others are much more diverse, ranging from accompanied recitation through vocal settings accompanied by a chamber ensemble, to choral works, either a cappella or with piano. Some composers only set an extract from the poem, and, including Debussy’s setting, only five use an orchestra. This article analyses aspects of these highly diverse settings and their reception with a view to testing the viability of ekphrasis as a methodological tool.