Love Enthroned Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1871
abbaabbacdcddc iambic pentameter sonnet
<artist/> <location/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>The key passage in the sonnet comes in the sestet, lines 9-11, where DGR works the word “breathless” for an exquisite ambiguity: depending upon how one inflects its meaning, the word signifies either a transmortal realm (no human breathing) and an entirely mortal place (associated with the breathless passion of human lovers). This “enthroned” location is the “eternity” referenced in the <xref doc="a.1-1880.s258.raw"> <title level="wrk">“Introductory Sonnet” that opens the sequence and just precedes this sonnet. The play of language is underscored by the allusion in lines 9-10 to Keats's “All breathing human passion far above” ( “Ode on a Grecian Urn” , line 28).

Textual History: Composition

DGR drafted two passages for the sonnet in the first of the four small notebooks in the British Library's Ashley Library: a text of lines 5-6 and another of lines 5-7. These represent revisions for the sonnet he must already have drafted. Four complete manuscripts survive, all dating subsequent to these drafts: a corrected copy and a copy made from that copy (both in the Troxell Collection, Princeton); a copy made from the second of the Troxell copies; and a fair copy in the group of Kelmscott Love sonnets.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

First published in the 1881 <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> and collected thereafter.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

WMR, <hi rend="i">DGR Designer and Writer</hi> , 185 Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">House of Life</hi> 65

Ballads and Sonnets first edition text Ballads and Sonnets first edition text The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), first edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 October 17 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), second edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1882), fourth edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1882 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), (author's proofs, British Library copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April-June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature M (Delaware Museum, first author's proof, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April 25 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature M (Delaware Museum, first author's proof, copy 2, revise) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April 28 0 The House of Life, A Sonnet Sequence (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Princeton/Troxell collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869-1881 0 The House of Life, A Sonnet Sequence (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Princeton/Troxell collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869-1881 0 Small Notebook 1 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871-1879? 0 Small Notebook 1 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871-1879? 0 The House of Life (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1845 - 1881 0 The Bodleian Notebook (“Kelmscott Love Sonnets”) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1874 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0