Commentary
Introduction
This sonnet concludes the 1870 group of four (
<xref doc="a.1-1853.raw">Known in Vain</xref>
,
<xref doc="a.3-1854.raw">The Landmark</xref>
,
<xref doc="a.1-1855.raw">A Dark Day</xref>
) that
define the movement into the second part of the 1881 sonnet sequence. They
function in a similar way in the expanded 1881 version of
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">The House of Life</xref>
.
That is, they point to the special difficulties attending the belated
worshipper
(line 4). The figure is here constructed as an allegorical
sign for the lover, the poet, and the artist.
Of special interest is the way the sonnet itself becomes
an emblem of this problem. The theophanies that climax the movement of the
octave signify in themselves a “height
” (line 9), and as such they
call attention to the position of this sonnet and its group in the rhythm
of the sequence as a whole. Once again DGR associates himself and his
work with the pilgrim Dante, partly through the invocation of the journey
motif, partly through the recollection of Guinicelli's bird, which Dante
also exploited.
As with all the early sonnets DGR recovers for
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
project in 1869-1870, this one's double chronology is exploited in various ways.
The allegorical urgency of the text is increased when this double perspective
is realized. Most importantly, the sense of a fatality governing DGR's life
and work gets especially reinforced in this sonnet and its companions.
Textual History: Composition
DGR wrote the sonnet in July 1853, when he was on a
solitary walking tour in Warwickshire. A year later he wrote to
Allingham that he composed it “in great glory on the top of a hill
which I reached one after-sunset
” (see letter to
Allingham, August 1854, where he copies a text of the sonnet). Another manuscript, a corrected copy, is gathered in the Fitzwilliam composite
“House of Life” sequence.
Textual History: Revision
The original sonnet of 1853 was considerably revised
when DGR published the text in the 1870 volume. Some of these revisions
were made before it was printed. He contemplated revisions to lines 5-8 in October 1854, in response to charges of obscurity by Allingham (see DGR's letter to Allingham of 15 October 1854,
Fredeman,
<hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi>
, 54. 67
). Other changes—including the highly
significant ones at lines 9-12—were made in the proofs. The latter
first appear in the A Proofs
in September (see DGR's letter to WMR of 15 September 1869).
DGR sketched an interesting variation on the sonnet's theme in a prose notebook passage dating from the mid-1870s.
Printing History
First printed in 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="2-1853">Poems</xref>
and thereafter. It is
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
Sonnet XXXIII in the
1870 volume, and Sonnet
LXX in 1881.
Autobiographical
The sonnet will yield quite different autobiographical
suggestions when it is read in the context of its original (1853)
composition date, and when it is read in the contexts of the 1869-1870/1881
where the focus is in
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">The House of Life</xref>
.
Bibliographic
Baum, ed.,
<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
, 172-173
Doughty,
<hi rend="i">A Victorian Romantic</hi>
, 138-139
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer</hi>
, 232-233