Commentary
Introduction
Like
<xref doc="a.3-1847.raw">“My Sister's Sleep”</xref>
, the poem is a paradigm instance of DGR's early Pre-Raphaelite
handling of concrete details. The effect is not exactly “realistic”,
however. The style functions primarily on two other thematic fronts.
On one hand it conveys, obliquely, a picture of a traumatic
moment, usually a moment following
immediately upon some experience of intense psychic distress.
On the other hand it carries an implicit argument for an aesthetic
program in which phenomena are prized for their elemental, primary
qualities. (The early Pre-Raphaelite ideal of “truth to
nature” points in this direction.) The
programmatic character of this kind of work is
especially clear in “The Woodspurge” when the climactic
stanzas introduce a potential for symbolic reading (via the trinitarian
possibilities opened by a flower with ‘three cups in one’).
The final stanza short-circuits the religious-symbolic reading, however,
by insisting that, in crucial human moments, an ultimate wisdom
will be found in simple facticities. The Ruskinian connections to this
kind of thought are manifest.
Textual History: Composition
According to WMR the poem was composed in1856 (see
<xref doc="a.pr5240.f11.rad" workcode="1-1856">1911</xref>
, date in Table of Contents). There is no hard evidence that confirms or disconfirms
that dating, but it has been widely accepted. The
Fitzwilliam
manuscript was printer's copy for the first printing
Textual History: Revision
Printing History
First printed as part of the pre-publication process
for the 1870
<xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="1-1856">Poems</xref>
, in the Penkill Proofs, August 1869. Those proofs have no special organization of the
poetic units. At the next proof stage, the so-called A Proofs (Sept. 1869), this poem is placed in a loosely
organized section under the heading
<xref doc="a.1-1870.apr.lasner.rad" from="92">Sonnets and Songs, Towards a Work to be Called The House of Life</xref>
. DGR experimented with the order of this section until, in the final proof
stage (realized at the beginning of March, 1870) this poem and ten others were
grouped as
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of
Life's</xref>
integral section of
<xref doc="a.44b-1869.raw">
Songs</xref>
. In the 1881
<xref doc="a.1-1881.1stedn.rad" workcode="1-1856">Poems. A New Edition</xref>
, this
section is detached from
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">The House of Life</xref>
and placed under the heading
<xref doc="a.20-1881.raw">Lyrics</xref>
,
and two other poems are added to the group.
Pictorial
The poem is a good instance of DGR's effort to render
in a textual form the painterly method of an early Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic.
The extreme clarity of the details, as well as the presentation of an
intense psychic moment, correspond to any number of pictures done by Hunt,
Millais, and DGR in his earlier years.
Autobiographical
Following a suggestion of WMR's in his
<xref doc="a.pr5240.f11.rad" from="667">1911</xref>
note to the poem, Doughty (
A Victorian Romantic (195-196) reads
it as a record of a moment in the troubled relationship of DGR and Elizabeth Siddal.
Bibliographic
Doughty,
<hi rend="i">A Victorian Rmantic</hi>
, 195-196
Holberg,
<xref doc="a." workcode="1-1856" from="299" to="314">“Rossetti and the Trance”</xref>
, (1970)
McGann, “Rossetti's Significant Details”, 41-54
Rees,
<hi rend="i">Poetry of DGR</hi>
, 65-67
Riede,
<hi rend="i">DGR and the Limits of Victorian Vision</hi>
, 57-59