“The Depths of the Sea (1887) by Edward Burne-Jones”By Margaret D. Stetz
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“To paint from Nature!”
the cry of the Pre-Raphaelites
Victorians in rebellion
no more classrooms, copies, and Academies
Lizzie Siddal lying in a bathtub
model for Millais’s Ophelia
soaking for days (emerging with pneumonia)
the centerpiece
of Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat
a living goat, later his dinner
and when Rossetti drew a wombat,
it was “Top” who rooted in his garden
shipped from Australia
to meet its death in London
deprived of proper food and care.
Burne-Jones was scrupulous
borrowing a big glass tank
for his underwater vision
but that mermaid--
did he approach Charles Jamrach,
whose business was procuring wildlife
for a price
never asking gentlemen
the fate of what they bought?
Was he offered an extraordinary captive
netted by accident
trafficked under cover?
Her arms, her breast, her belly
a lunar color, luminous white and green,
her long fishtail a silvery blue…
was this a chimera? alive or dead?
Portrait of a mermaid:
no more unreal or real
than ladies strolling by the seashore
waists crushed in by whalebone
cloaked in glittering wings of jewel beetles
heads adorned by hats transporting aviaries
profiles merged with
plumage, claws, and beaks
monstrous beauties
beyond borders
fantastic beasts.
the cry of the Pre-Raphaelites
Victorians in rebellion
no more classrooms, copies, and Academies
Lizzie Siddal lying in a bathtub
model for Millais’s Ophelia
soaking for days (emerging with pneumonia)
the centerpiece
of Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat
a living goat, later his dinner
and when Rossetti drew a wombat,
it was “Top” who rooted in his garden
shipped from Australia
to meet its death in London
deprived of proper food and care.
Burne-Jones was scrupulous
borrowing a big glass tank
for his underwater vision
but that mermaid--
did he approach Charles Jamrach,
whose business was procuring wildlife
for a price
never asking gentlemen
the fate of what they bought?
Was he offered an extraordinary captive
netted by accident
trafficked under cover?
Her arms, her breast, her belly
a lunar color, luminous white and green,
her long fishtail a silvery blue…
was this a chimera? alive or dead?
Portrait of a mermaid:
no more unreal or real
than ladies strolling by the seashore
waists crushed in by whalebone
cloaked in glittering wings of jewel beetles
heads adorned by hats transporting aviaries
profiles merged with
plumage, claws, and beaks
monstrous beauties
beyond borders
fantastic beasts.
Margaret D. Stetz is the Mae & Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware, USA, where she teaches courses that reflect the intersection of the arts. In 2021, her poetry appeared in A Plate of Pandemic, C*nsorship Magazine, Kerning, Mono, Review Americana, Rushing Thru the Dark, West Trestle Review, and other journals. In 2022, she will be co-curator of an exhibition at the Grolier Club in New York City to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Aubrey Beardsley’s birth.