#seems intriguing

"Both Rossetti and McCulloch work out particular ideas against a broader thematic canvas. Rossetti deliberately imposed this unifying structure upon his major work,The House of Life [1870/1881], forging a large collection of sonnets written over many years into a coherent narrative. For McCulloch, structure seems innate, and defines the parameters of a moral and spiritual worldview. Both Rossetti and McCulloch write much of man's problems in a mutable, indifferent, even hostile world. Both seek, if we may phrase it in the grandiose Victorian manner, to define man's place in the universe. For Rossetti, self-described "bondman" of "Lady Beauty" [DGR; Soul's Beauty; 1866] and songster of the god Love, this meant primarily the place of man as artist. For McCulloch, also a troubadour of the human heart, it means the place of man as man. Both McCulloch and Rossetti chronicle the journey of one human soul, not all humanity. And for both, the key to surviving this journey is human love."