of poets and language

The first time I had ever heard of ‘the PreRaphaelites’ was in my 10th grade English Literature class. 

I remember the moment vividly. It was a morning class. And I was quite sad. A friend at school had just been killed on his motor bike and we were close

English literature had always been a balm for emotional pain for me in the past 

it was the picture of a painting in the text book we were reading from. ‘The Beguiling of Merlin’ …by Edward Burn-Jones; I was utterly compelled to the page —especially as I had just bought a novel with this exact painting on the cover. Part of why I bought the book. 

This was the class that opened my eyes to the vague sense that humans on earth have always been telling an ongoing story through the arts. Each movement. Each era 

The reason I found myself further still pulled into wanting to know more beyond their flooding of senses through aesthetic intense use of color and imagery 

What I loved was that the emphasis was not on the classical expectation of creating art. 

They were rebels. I loved that. I identified with the resentment of having my pencil removed from my fingers by my mother to correct my artistic errors; I didn’t want shadows; I wanted bold lines and my own interpretation of style that was not dependent on “realism”

It was the class that weeks earlier had introduced me to the romantic poets (the language of poetry with their codes)so by now I already loved Keats from my favorite poem. That they depict poems or works of literature in their work thrilled me to distraction