Her Gifts

Her Gifts My Lady's Gifts Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1871 <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>Baum (page 108) quotes Frederick Page to suggest that DGR wrote a commentary on this sonnet. But the quoted passage is actually from the fragmentary textual remains that we have for an imitation canzone DGR began in 1866, which he titled <xref doc="a.2-1866.raw"> <title level="wrk">“My Lady” . Nonetheless, this sonnet and that fragmentary earlier work are related through their common descent from early Italian “praise of my lady” poems.

The sonnet plainly calls back to “Love's Testament” , which itself is a sonnet deeply invested in Dantean materials.

Textual History: Composition

The sonnet descends to us in five integral manuscripts, all fair copies: a loose copy in the Bancroft collection; a copy in the Fitzwilliam compilation of “The House of Life”; a copy made for Jane Morris and gathered in the Kelmscott Love sonnets sequence; and two copies in the Library of Congress, one in the H. B. Forman collection, the other the printer's copy manuscript.

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> , 203-204 Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">House of Life</hi> , 107-109

1881 Poems First Edition text Perhaps recalling Byron's famous poem to his sister, “I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name” . The allusion would be apt in a poem that treats the beloved's name as the sign of the “inmost. . .sanctuary” of a shrine that is withheld from public access and knowledge. 1881 Poems First Edition text The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Her Gifts (corrected holograph copy, Bancroft Collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871 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 O (Delaware Museum, first author's proof) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 3 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete first revise, author's corrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete first revise, uncorrected copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete first revise, uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete second revise, author's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 9 May 1881 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete second revise, uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 9 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, incomplete third revise, author's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 -1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete third revise, uncorrected copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete third revise, partial uncorrected copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete third revise, author's copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, final proof, uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 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 A Series of Holograph MSS 1849-1880 (Library of Congress) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1849-1880 0 A Series of Holograph MSS 1849-1880 (Library of Congress) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1849-1880 0 Twelve Sonnets and Some Other Poems by Dante G. Rossetti (Library of Congress posthumous MS book) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848-1881 0