To Mary in Summer

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1847
Rhyme: a3b2a3a3b2
Meter: iambic
Genre: song

Annotations

Editorial glosses and textual notes are available in a pop-up window. Line numbering reflects the structure of the Penkill Proof text.

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

Though written before “St. Agnes of Intercession”, DGR may have meant to incorporate this poem into the story (whose chief central figure is Mary Arden). In any case, the story was not completed nor was the poem incorporated. DGR thought well enough of the poem to have considered printing it in his 1870 Poems. It was set in type in the Penkill Proofs but subsequently dropped from consideration.

Textual History: Composition

The Fitzwilliam manuscript represents an intermediate holograph carrying the revisions and changes DGR made when he had the work set in type in August 1869. The Ashley Library manuscript is of an earlier date, but the earliest of all is the fair copy in the Duke University Library.

Printing History

The poem was first published in WMR's 1911 edition of the Works, where WMR seems to have worked from the Fitzwilliam manuscript, which he would have purged of its cancelled variants.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 10-1847.raw.xml