Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82)

English poet and painter, born in London to Italian parents. In 1848, Rossetti, as a painter-poet, founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and became the leader of the group. His collection of sonnets, House of Life, was published in 1870 (and 1881), and it is counted as his masterpiece. Now, however, he has been highly reevaluated as a talented storyteller in his literary ballads. Rossetti, having read Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) at the age of fifteen, skillfully produced a ballad-like atmosphere in his works, where we find his own Gothicism and a taste for sexual motifs as well. (M. M.)