“Between the phantom and the sight”: Photography, Desire, and Vicariousness in the Poetry of Theodore Wratislaw and Olive Custance

This article investigates the late-nineteenth century and turn-of the century literary motif of the photographic portrait, focusing on its deployment in a number of poems by two lesser-known fin-de-siècle English poets, Theodore Wratislaw and Olive Custance. I first provide an overview of the late-Victorian trope of the photographic portrait, illustrating how, in some literary works of the period, photographs are represented as lyricized and spectral substitutes for the speaker’s, a character’s, or the poet’s amorous interest. After pointing out how this phantasmatic, erotic, and surrogative view of photographic portraiture lies behind one of the few notable events in Wratislaw’s literary career, I show how this conception is fully typified in his poem Her Photograph. Finally, I concentrate on Custance’s lifelong fascination for the photographic medium. More in particular, I add to previous readings of Custance’s familiarity with the representational and seductive power of photography by analyzing her whimsical handling of the motif of the photographic simulacrum in her poem The Photograph. This poem, which stands out for its emphasis on the ambivalence and limitations of photography, beautifully encapsulates the originality and mobility of her poetic symbolism.