Onesto di Boncima, Bolognese. “Sonnet. He wishes that he could meet his Lady alone.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?
Rhyme: abbaabbacdecde
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

DGR's source is the text in Poeti del Primo Secolo (II. 147). The translation is interesting because of the way it moves from a relatively free initial treatment of the semantics of the original to an increasingly close semantic treatment. This pattern is discernible in a number of his translations. In terms of the technical features of the Italian sonnet, DGR departs slightly from the rhyme scheme of the sestet.

See the Italian original for further commentary.

Textual History: Composition

Probably late 1840s

Printing History

The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 101d-1861.raw.xml