Why did Robert Buchanan call Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s work the Fleshly School of Poetry?

Robert Buchanan coined the term "Fleshly School of Poetry" in an 1871 article to criticize the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his contemporaries, such as Algernon Swinburne.12

Buchanan attacked these poets for what he perceived as a "morbid deviation from the healthy forms of life". He specifically took issue with their focus on "exquisite sensuality" and what he described as a lack of virility, tenderness, and sanity. Ultimately, Buchanan’s disapproval stemmed from his moral objection to the group's frankness regarding sex and their departure from traditional moral didacticism in literature. He viewed their work as possessing a "superfluity of extreme sensibility" that he found distasteful.1