Heart's Hope Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1871
abbaabbacdcddc iambic pentameter sonnet
<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>The earliest (1871) <xref doc="a.2-1871.delms.rad">manuscript</xref> of the sonnet (in the Bancroft collection) has a note by DGR indicating that it is “To come first in the series”, a comment that indicates the importance he attached to the work. He in fact placed the poem at the head of the <xref doc="a.9-1874.raw">Kelmscott Love sonnets</xref> sequence, where its principal significance is thereby defined in relation to Jane Morris. The two lines climaxing the octave declare one of DGR's central concepts. They focus the character of DGR's work, poetical as well as pictorial, and they are applicable both to the stylistic method and to the ideological content.</p> <p/> </section> <section type="texthistcomp"> <head>Textual History: Composition</head> <p>Composed (probably) sometime between late July and the end of September 1871, the sonnet descends to us in four integral manuscripts: the Bancroft collection <xref doc="a.2-1871.delms.rad">corrected draft</xref>; a <xref doc="a.9-1874.bodleianms.rad" workcode="2-1871" from="[2]">fair copy</xref> made for Jane Morris and the Kelmscott Love sonnets sequence; and two later copies, the <xref doc="a.44-1869.fizms.rad" workcode="2-1871" from="9">fair copy</xref> in the Fitzwilliam compilation of <hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>; and the <xref doc="a.22-1881.troxell.rad" workcode="2-1871" from="[14]">printer's copy</xref>, now gathered in the Troxell compilation of the sonnet sequence.</p> <p>If the reference to spring is at all literal, the sonnet may date from May or early June 1871 when DGR and Jane Morris spent time alone together on several occasions.</p> </section> <section type="texthistrev"> <head>Textual History: Revision</head> <p>A fragmentary <xref doc="a.nb0005.duke.rad" workcode="2-1871" from="[73]">late manuscript revision</xref> of lines 13-14 appears in Notebook IV in the Duke University collection. It dates from around 1880. The shifting of the sonnet in 1881 from its position at the head of the sonnet sequence (in the Kelmscott Love Sonnets version) to its received location is significant. There it is poised at the threshold of the powerful erotic sonnets that constitute, in one sense, the eccentric early pivot point of the entire sequence—that is, just before <xref doc="a.4-1869.raw"> <title level="wrk">“The Kiss“ .

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> , 188 Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">House of Life</hi> , 70-72

1881 Ballads and Sonnets First Edition text Alluding to Exodus chap. 14. A variant of the passage that DGR first wrote (and published) in “Love-Lily“ , 23-24. 1881 Ballads and Sonnets First Edition text The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Heart's Hope (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 M (Delaware Museum, first author's proof, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April 25 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature M (Delaware Museum, first author's proof, copy 2, revise) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April 28 0 The House of Life, A Sonnet Sequence (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Princeton/Troxell collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869-1881 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 Notebook Pages (Note Book IV, Duke Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871, 1880 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0