Even So Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1859; 1854 (perhaps)
a3b4a3a 3 trochaic lyric There is an extra b rhyme in the third stanza, following line 2.
<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 with poems like <title level="wrk"> <xref doc="a.4-1859.raw">A New-Year's Burden</xref> , “Even So” is as much an experiment in verse technique as anything else. Consequently, the poem arrests one with its abstract qualities—an arrest all the more effective because of the apparent subject (failed love), which come in at such an oblique angle. The poem's self-display of technical precision and deliberateness becomes an objective correlative for an immobilized emotional condition.

Textual History: Composition

The poem is dated by WMR 1859 (in the table of contents to 1911 ); no evidence for this date is offered. The close correspondence of the central stanza to a passage in a letter of 26 June 1854 (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 54. 51 ) suggests that the poem may have been begun, if not written, at that time. The only extant manuscript, a fair copy, dates from 1869.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

The poem was first printed as part of the prepublication texts that DGR put together in 1869, as a prelude to the publication of the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.raw">Poems</xref> . It was printed in August in the Penkill Proofs, where it formed part of the section of <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref> poems. DGR moved the poem to the opening <xref doc="a.1-1870.raw">Poems</xref> section as the prepublication text of the 1870 volume moved into the proofs for the first edition in early March (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 70. 45 , letter to Swinburne of 7 March 1870). The poem was first published in the first edition of the 1870 Poems.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

1881 Poems First Edition Text Coventry Patmore said of this stanza that it “seems scratched with an adamantine pen upon a slab of agate” (See WMR's note, 1911, 668n ). The stanza is the central event in the poem in every sense, and it distinctly recalls a passage in a letter to Allingham that DGR wrote from Hastings, 26 June 1854: “There are dense fogs of heat here now, through which sea and sky loom as one wall, with the webbed craft creeping on it like flies, or standing there as if they would drop off dead” (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 54. 51 ). 1881 Poems 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): 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 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition, page proofs with author's corrections Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1873 November (early November) 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.): Second Trial Book, British Library, (Ashley 1400) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 30 (25 November - 6 December) 0 Poems. (Privately Printed.): Second Trial Book (partial proof), Duke U. Library Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 15 (before 25 November) 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.): Proofs for the Second Trial Book (partial), Princeton/Troxell. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25-26 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 Poems. A New Edition. (1881) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature R (Delaware Museum, author's first proof (with corrections)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 16 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature R (Delaware Museum, first proof (uncorrected duplicate)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 16 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature R (Delaware Museum, first revise proof (copy 1)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 (circa) 0 Poems. A New Edition (1881), proof Signature R (Delaware Museum, first revise proof (copy 2)) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 (circa) 0 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Poems and Sonnets (Fitzwilliam Museum bound volume of miscellaneous poems) DGR 1848-1881 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His Family-Letters with a Memoir (Volume One) William Michael Rossetti 1895 0