Sharp's comment, that “there are no more terrible
and impressive sonnets in our language
” (DGR: A Record and A Study
a soul's sin” and its vain virtue, not about what Shakespeare called
“lust in action”(see
To read the sonnet accurately we must remind ourselves
of DGR's poetic traditions:
that is, the Artificial School
” and
cited its two principal English exponents: Metaphysical verse up through
the work of Cowley, and the Della Cruscan movement that began in the
1780s (see
The extremities of wit pursued through this kind
of writing place correspondingly extreme demands on a reader's attention.
In a poem about sex and sin, for example, particularly in a Victorian
context, the two would be expected to stand in a direct relation. But
Buchanan recoiled from this poem (and from DGR's book in general) because he
saw that it was submitting that relation to a foundational critique.
So in this sonnet the sin that is a function of virtue results in
the corruption of erotic desire. DGR's argument, as always,
proceeds by images. Most important to notice is the
idea that the transformation of the “fair deed
” by “a
soul's sin
”
should appear in conventional figures of purity and goodness
(lines 4, 8). DGR is arguing
that “the sorriest thing that enters hell”
is, in several
senses, an unconsummated act that is proud of its formal virtue: an intense “desire”
(“God's desire at noon
”, line 11) that does not attain its
fulfillment.
Equally important is the function of the figure of death
in the sonnet. The tropic structure clearly suggests that this is in one
sense the “little death
” of coition: the moment of
consummation that would have produced a “sainted
” event. In
more cosmic terms, this death is directly associated with the running theme
of
Some of the most startling moments in the sonnet emerge
when the text generates what appear as arbitrary and even unwanted
associations. Notable here are lines 10-11, where the religious figure
also suggests coitus interruptus; or lines 11-12, where the image of drowning
recalls both
destined wife” makes various (autobiographical) connections that the sequence all but forces upon us.
Finally, one must call attention to the long tradition that
has read the sonnet as DGR's personal expression of regret. The thought is
that the sonnet is DGR's version of Shakespeare's “Th' expence of spirit in a
waste of shame”
(Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse
unacted desires
” (
Rossetti Papers 1862 to 1870
The two manuscripts in the
Once printed in August 1869 the text underwent only one alteration in proof before it was published in the 1870
Along with
First printed in August 1869 as part of the
While the whole of
The sonnet clearly recalls Milton's representation of Sin and Death in
The sonnet is regularly interpreted as DGR's paean of regret
for the ruin of his life by his sexual promiscuity, or (at any rate) by
his divided love relations and his unfaithfulness to his wife (see
Mégroz and Doughty; and see Rees for a more
general comment along these lines). But if one is to pursue a reading
within this critical framework one might follow the poetic argument
of the poem, which figures damnation as
unconsummated erotic desires. That argument would associate DGR's regret
more with Jane Morris than with his wife Elizabeth. The “vain virtues
”
would be his faithfulness to his wife (while she was alive) and his
refusal to act on his love for his friend's wife.
DGR: A Record and A Study
“scorching bridegroom”, an image that would reinforce the oblique critical reflections on sex and marriage.
garbage”. It seems probable that DGR made the change to create an echo with the opening