Guido Guinicelli. “Canzone. He perceives his Rashness in Love, but has no choice.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?; 1861
Rhyme: abbacdcede
Meter: pentamemter and trimeter
Genre: canzone

Bibliography

“Table of Poets” inEarly Italian Poets vol. 1,xxv.

◦ Valeriani and Lampredi, Poeti del primo secolo vol. 1,93-95.

◦ Contini, Poeti de duecento vol. 1,450-51.

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

One of Guinizelli's celebrated canzone, it is referenced by Dante himelf in De Vulgari Eloquio (II.6.6).

DGR makes one of his common variations (abba for abab) in the fronte but thereafter in the sirma follows the original closely, making his usual substitutions of iambic pentameter for the hendeccasyllabics and iambic trimeter for the setenarii. His source is the text in Poeti del Primo Secolo (I. 93-95).

Textual History: Composition

As with most of DGR's translations, this one cannot be exactly fixed. It is probably a fairly early work, however—done in the 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: 154d-1861.raw.xml