Commentary
Introduction
Composed in 1850, the poem was much revised for its first
printing in the 1856
Oxford and
Cambridge Magazine
. The work clearly
relates to DGR's programmatic concerns about art and its relation to
society,
concerns that were most pressing for him in the years of his
Pre-Raphaelite committments in the 40s and 50s. The 1856 text
treats these matters in a comic tone that tells much about his skeptical
view
of English art and society at large, including a “revolutionary”
movement like the PRB, which was organized towards artistic and social
reform.
As such the poem exemplifies what DGR would later call taking an “inner
standing point”
toward its materials (see
The
Stealthy School of
Criticism
); that is, treating its subject in such
a way that the poem
itself is drawn into the point of view taken toward the nominal subject.
When
he revised the poem yet again for its appearance
in the 1870
Poems
,
that inner standing point was not discarded. It was, however, seriously modified.
Textual History: Composition
WMR says the poem was “Written in the autumn of 1850”
(see
Works [1911]
, 649
), a comment which
revises his earlier judgment
(
DGR as Designer and Writer
, 137
) that it was written in 1851 or 1852.
He had clearly consulted
his
P. R. B. Journal
, where he notes
that on 13 November DGR had
“written a stanza or two to a poem he had begun shortly
before leaving London
[for a brief sojourn at Sevenoaks] suggested by some of the
Nineveh sculptures”
(
The P. R. B. Journal
, 82
). How
much further DGR
proceeded with the poem at that time is unclear. He may have finished a
draft, but if he did, he certainly revised it heavily in 1856, when he
published it for the first time. A fragment of such a manuscript was printed by
Marillier—three stanzas, two from the original manuscipt of 1850, the third an interpolation made in 1856. The present location of this manuscript is not known.
Textual History: Revision
The poem went through three distinct phases of
production: its initial composition in the fall of 1850, perhaps only in
a fragmentary form; its revision in 1856, when DGR published it in the
August 1856 issue of the
Oxford and Cambridge Magazine
;
and its second revision for
printing in the 1870
Poems
.
At that point the poem had achieved its
culminant form, which is a bit shorter than the 1856 text, and very
different in tone.
A fragment of manuscript in the South African National Museum shows that DGR had the poem set up in galley proofs sometime around 15 August 1869, and that the poem was at that point revised to the form that it achieved in the so-called Penkill Proofs, the first of the elaborate set of trial books that DGR had printed in preparation for publishing his 1870 volume of poems.
Printing History
The poem was first printed in the
August 1856 issue of the
Oxford and Cambridge
Magazine
, a text that was picked up and
reprinted in the May 1858 issue of
The
Crayon
.
The poem was next printed in 1869, when it was set in galley proof, revised, and set again in the
Penkill
Proofs
in August. This printing is the earliest surviving proof state in
the heavy process of revision of his works that DGR undertook in
1869-1870
Poems
.
Historical
The contemporary setting
focuses on the Near Eastern
antiquities being acquired by the British Museum. DGR uses that setting
to
develop a broadly-based critique of imperial cultures. The critique
emerges
through his appropriation of certain key literary texts, particularly
texts by
Byron and Shelley.
Literary
The principal source for the poem is
Sir Austen Layard,
Nineveh and
Its Remains
and
A Popular Account of
Discoveries at Nineveh
, the abridged
edition (1851). DGR used the latter when he was recasting his poem, but
the former when he wrote the first version in 1850.
Besides this reference work, DGR's poem clearly
recalls
Byron's earlier satiric treatment of
British cultural imperialism
in
Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage
(1812)
(see especially Canto II) and
“The
Curse of Minerva”
(1812), as well as
Shelley's sonnet
“Ozymandias”
which
DGR specifically recalls in his final two stanzas.
Autobiographical
DGR casts the poem in a distinctly personal mode,
as if it were written by a contemporary Londoner (which it was). That
point of
view establishes the “inner standing point”
in a work that
is
basically a kind of lyrical ballad.
Bibliographic
Bentley,
“Political
Themes”
, 166-174.
Boos,
Poetry of DGR
, 207-15.
Gregory,
“Life and Works of DGR” vol. 2
, 112-113.
Masefield,
Thanks Before Going
, 53-54.
Rees,
DGR Revisted
, 52-56.
Riede,
Poetry of DGR
, 52-56.
Sharp,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
, 325-331.
Stauffer, “Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Burdens of Nineveh”
.
Stauffer, “Punch on
Nineveh,”
369-394.
Stauffer, “Dante Rossetti's ‘Burden of
Nineveh’: Further Excavations”, 45-58.
Woodring, “The Burden of Nineveh,”
12-15.