William Michael Rossetti

Dinah Roe (Oxford Brookes University)
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William Michael Rossetti was a critic, editor, translator, biographer and secretary to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was art critic of

The Spectator

(1850-1858) and

The Critic

(1850-1856), and regularly contributed to

The Athenaeum

,

Fraser’s Magazine

, and

The Academy

, among many others. Rossetti wrote significant biographies of Keats and Shelley and also translated Dante’s

Inferno

. He promoted not only the contemporary work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters and writers, but also played a key role in rehabilitating the reputations of the Romantic poets who had preceded them, such as the nearly forgotten William Blake. Rossetti also championed American poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman, and was responsible for introducing Whitman’s poetry to a British readership.…

2116 words

Citation: Roe, Dinah. "William Michael Rossetti". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 October 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3854, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3854 William Michael Rossetti 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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