Death-in-Love Dies Atra 1st May 1869 Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1869
abbaabbacddcee iambic pentameter sonnet
<author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnliterary> <citntranslationoriginal> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citntranslationoriginal> <citnpictorial> <title/> <artist/> <location/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>As so often in DGR's work, pastiche is the figure that dominates his style. The authority of the figure permeates every aspect of his art (both textual and pictorial), but it comes most to the fore in works like this one, which takes such a literal approach to historically removed conventions and materials.</p> <p>Here the “image” named in line 1 reveals its character as soon as it begins to undergo its “Bewildering” (line 5) transformations. Ultimately it signifies art or any kind of imaginative construct; and a sonnet like this (or any work of art, it is here argued) is nothing more (or less) than a locus of image mutations that project a map of changing desire.</p> <p>This sonnet, in the sequence, concludes the important series that opened with its paired sonnet <title level="wrk"> <xref doc="a.9-1870.raw">“Life-in-Love”</xref> .

Textual History: Composition

Apparently written on 2 May 1869, commemorating the doleful anniversary of the delivery of a stillborn child to Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti in 1861. Three copies are gathered in the Fitzwilliam composite “House of Life” manuscript: the early draft copy (dated 1 May 1869), a corrected copy, and a fair copy made from the latter. There is also a fair copy with one correction in the U. of British Columbia library, the Norman Colbeck Collection. DGR scripted an interesting variant of line 9 in Ashley Notebook I (which dates sometime after 1871).

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

First printed in mid-August 1869 as part of the Penkill Proofs, the sonnet remained in all proof stages and was published in the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="13-1869">Poems</xref> and thereafter. It is <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref> Sonnet XXIII in the 1870 volume, and Sonnet XLVIII in 1881.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

The allegorical apparatus is a form of pastiche, one of the commonest of DGR's poetic devices. As in other pastiche texts (and pictures), it functions as a second-order set of figures: i.e., as an index or sign of a “dream” or fantasmal or imaginary order. Stylistically it has much in common with sonnets like <xref doc="a.3-1870.raw">“Passion and Worship”</xref> and <xref doc="a.2-1868.raw">“A Superscription”</xref> .

Translation

Autobiographical

The Fitzwilliam manuscript of the poem is inscribed by DGR “Dies Atra 1st May 1869”. This records the eighth anniversary of the delivery of DGR's and Elizabeth's stillborn daughter (the delivery was in fact on 2 May 1861). This event weaves its way through many of the sonnets in <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref> sequence. In the 1870 sequence it comes as a key figure in the initiating sonnet <xref doc="a.1-1869.raw">“Bridal Birth“</xref> , and it receives its most literal presence in <xref doc="a.10-1870.raw">“Stillborn Love”</xref> .

Bibliographic

Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi> , 135-136 Doughty, <hi rend="i">A Victorian Romantic</hi> , 277-280, 389 WMR, <hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer</hi> , 215 Zweig, 178-193

1870 First Edition Text See WMR's note (1911) soul-sequestered: Baum comments on this “curious phrase”, repeated in <xref doc="a.21-1869.raw">“The Stream's Secret”</xref> l. 223; it may mean “a face sequestered and isolated from all other faces by depth of soul, speaking through the features (W.M.R.), or simply the face of one who is now a disembodied soul, isolated from mankind” (Baum, <hi rend="i">Poems, Ballads and Sonnets</hi> 290n ). the immemorable hour: the phrase locates another important motif in the sequence. In the 1870 version of <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref> it anticipates <xref doc="a.10-1870.raw">“Stillborn Love”</xref> lines 1-2; but when the sequence is expanded in the 1881 version , this hour is signalled at the very outset in the <xref doc="a.1-1880.s258.raw">“Introductory Sonnet”</xref> . The obliquely-turned double meaning of the word “immemorable” is important to register: its primary meaning is “Not memorable; not worthy of remembrance”, but it carries as well the obsolete meaning “immemorial”, i.e., “ancient beyond memory or record”. The play between these skewed meanings, especially in the context of the sonnet's ambiguously referenced memories, sharpens the poem's obscurities—like black laid upon black in a painting by Stella or Rothko. The line recalls <xref doc="a.1-1869.raw">Bridal Birth</xref> line 8. The line recapitulates all the transformational figures of Love and Death that have emerged and moved through the sequence to this point. What is notable is the complete undecidability of the value one is to assign to these figures of desire. Or rather, one registers the fact that their values are themselves transformational (so that, paradigmatically, the figure of Death here may be taken as a sign of hope or despair). 1870 First Edition Text Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, British Library copy, (Ashley 1405) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1-7 0 Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, Fitzwilliam Museum (Copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1 (and 22 March for additional material) 0 Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, Princeton/Troxell Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1-7 0 Poems (1870): Mixed Proofs 1869-1870, Fitzwilliam Museum Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October - 1970 March 0 Poems (1870): Mixed Proofs 1869-1870, 1881, Princeton/Troxell Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November - 1870 March 0 Poems (1870): First Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 April 26 0 Poems (1870): Second Edition (DGR's corrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 May 0 Poems (1870): Second Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 May 0 Poems (1870): Third Edition (copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 June 0 Poems (1870): Third Edition (copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 June 0 Poems (1870): Fourth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 July (or early August) 0 Poems (1870): Fifth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871 0 Poems (1870): Sixth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1872 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): A Proof, Lasner Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 September 13 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: the A2 Proofs, Fitzwilliam Museum Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 September 20 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: Penkill Proofs, Princeton/Troxell (copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 August 18 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Penkill Proofs, Princeton/Troxell (copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 August 18 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition 1873 November 15 (late November or early December) 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition, with author's corrections (Yale copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1873 November 15 (late November or early December) 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: First Trial Book, British Library copy (Ashley 1393) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: First Trial Book (Fitzwilliam Museum copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.), First Trial Book (Huntington Library copy DGR 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: First Trial Book, Princeton/Troxell (Losh copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): First Trial Book (partial), Princeton/Troxell (copy 2) 1869 October 3 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Second Trial Book, British Library, (Ashley 1400) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 30 (25 November - 6 December) 0 Poems. (Privately Printed).: Second Trial Book (Fitzwilliam Museum copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 Poems, Privately Printed: Second Trial Book, Alice Boyd/Lasner copy. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Second Trial Book, Princeton/Troxell. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Second Trial Book (partial), author's working copy, Princeton/Troxell. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Death-in-Love (holograph fair copy, U. of British Columbia Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 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 P (Delaware Museum, 4 May author's proof, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 4 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature P (Delaware Museum, 4 May author's proof, copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 4 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature P (Delaware Museum, 6 May proof, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature P (Delaware Museum, 6 May proof, copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature P (Delaware Museum, 9 May proof, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 9 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature P (Delaware Museum, 9 May proof, copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 9 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 House of Life (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1845 - 1881 0 The House of Life (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1845 - 1881 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0