Sacred Profanity: Decoding the Lily in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel, Julie Ann Whyman

It would be all too easy to dismiss Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s flowers as frivolous nosegays if it were not for their proliferation, compositional relevance and contextual symbolism. This paper argues that flowers, rather than merely scenting Rossetti’s work, contribute to its intrinsic structure, profundity and thematic substance. By comparing Rossetti’s poetic and visual depictions of just one flower, the lily, in The Blessed Damozel (1847-81) with relevant entries in Reverend Hilderic Friend’s Flowers and Flower Lore (1883) it seeks to stimulate an increasingly fruitful examination of the significance of floral symbolism in Rossetti’s oeuvre.