Commentary
Introduction
The work is clearly an allegorical treatment of
the subject of art's relation to the world. The message is ominous since
DGR leaves only ominous alternatives: either a revelation that would
bring destruction, or a dangerous (because illusory) concealment.
The lines were written “as an
inscription”
to the painting
of the same name that was commissioned by C. P. Mathews in July 1867. The
oil painting was rejected by Mathews, who disliked the severed head, but
several pencil versions survive.
For further commentary see the editorial matter for the pictorial materials.
Textual History: Composition
Until recently it was thought the poem was written in July 1867, just after DGR received
the commission for the painting. He sent
a copy of the poem in a letter to his mother
on 25 July 1867 (see
Fredeman,
Correspondence
, 67. 103
). But another manuscript is extant in the Wormsley Library's bound volume of letters, poems, and other documents and this is copied on the verso of a page torn from one of DGR's notebooks. The notebook entries on the page date from October 1865.
Textual History: Revision
Production History
The earliest sketch for this picture dates from 1865. Several
more finished states were made as drawings for the oil composition,
but the latter was never executed because Mathews, who commissioned the work, was
unhappy with DGR's conception of the picture (see DGR's letters to Mathews from
late 1867 and early 1868,
Fredeman,
Correspondence
, 67. 160
).
Printing History
The poem was first printed as part of the
prepublication texts that DGR put together in 1869, as a prelude
to the publication of the 1870
<xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="1-1865.s183">
<hi rend="i">Poems</hi>
</xref>
. It was printed in August
in the Penkill Proofs,
where it formed part of the section of
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">
<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
</xref>
poems. DGR moved
the poem to the opening
<xref doc="a.1-1870.raw">
<hi rend="i">Poems</hi>
</xref>
section as the prepublication
text of the 1870 volume moved into the proofs for the first edition in early March.
The poem
was first published in the first edition of the 1870 volume.
Literary
The version of the story used by DGR (see lines 4-5),
in which Perseus overcame the monster by using the Medusa's head, is
uncommon, but he probably found his authority for it in Lemprière's
<xref doc="a.de5.l564.rad" link="dead">
<hi rend="i">Classical
Dictionary</hi>
</xref>
.
“The idea. . .that Andromeda hankered to see the head is apparently his own
invention”
(see Baum,
Poems, Ballads,
and Sonnets
, 123n
).
Riede (see
DGR and the Limits of Victorian Vision
(102)) aptly cites Shelley's preface to
<xref doc="a.shelley001.009.rad" link="dead">
<hi rend="i">Alastor</hi>
</xref>
and the sonnet
<xref doc="a.shelley001.010.rad" link="dead">“Lift not the painted
veil”</xref>
as precursors of this poem. At least
as relevant is Dante,
<xref doc="a.dante002.1.rad" link="dead">
<hi rend="i">Inferno</hi>
</xref>
Canto IX. 52-63.
Bibliographic
Marillier,
DGR: An Illustrated Memorial
109-110.
McGann,
<xref doc="a.sromantic.002.rad" link="dead" from="3" workcode="1-1865.s183" to="25">“The Beauty of the Medusa”</xref>
(1971), 3-25.
Patterson,
<xref doc="a.texasll.001.rad" link="dead" from="111" workcode="1-1865.s183" to="120">“A Terrible Beauty”</xref>
(1972) 111-120.
Riede,
<hi rend="i">DGR and the Limits of Victorian Vision</hi>
101-102.
Roussillon,
<xref doc="a." workcode="1-1865.s183">“The Many Faces of Medusa”</xref>
, JPRS N.S. 11 (2002), 5-18.
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer</hi>
58.
Surtees,
<hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi>
I. 106-107.