Commentary
Introduction
The pictorial double of this sonnet is an oil painting that DGR only executed in 1877. DGR's
brother described
the picture thus: “The idea is that of a Siren, or Sea-Fairy, whose lute summons a sea-bird
to listen, and whose song will soon prove fatal to some fascinated mariner”
(see WMR,
<hi rend="i">1911</hi>
).
The work
has much in common with
“The Orchard Pit”
,
and of course connects to DGR's many
images of fatal ladies. The sonnet recalls as well Swinburne's “To a Seamew”, which
also identifies the poet/artist with a sea bird.
Published in the 1881 volume, and associated with the 1877 painting, the sonnet acquires more
explicit meanings that were only latent in 1870 (when the sonnet was written). Most important in this respect is the emphasis
DGR places on the music of the Sirens, the sound of their spells. In the 1881
Ballads and
Sonnets
, DGR virtually identifies poetry's deepest powers with its musical resources. That argument is
established and pursued in the
“Lyrics&c.”
section of the volume.
In later years DGR tended to regard his painter's work as
marked with the corruptions of commercial dealings, whereas his poetry seemed relatively unstained. In this
double work (and other late double works as well, like
“Astarte
Syriaca”
), that distinction is laid under an increasingly severe critical scrutiny. The
musical resources of verse are resources of truth-telling, not redemptive insight or liberation. It is all but
impossible not to see the figure of the mariner here as the self-exposed poet whose ultimate goal
is to attain this severe clarity about himself and his work.
Textual History: Composition
The fair copy in the British Library is signed and dated by DGR “August 1870”. This seems to
settle the date of composition, especially since, if the poem had been composed in 1869, as WMR suggested, it
would probably have found a place in DGR's 1870 volume. Nonetheless, it is possible
that DGR may have written a draft of the poem in 1869, given the close relation it bears to
“The Orchard Pit”
.
A second (undated) fair copy manuscript
survives > in the Getty Library.
Textual History: Revision
Printing History
First published in the 1881
Ballads and
Sonnets
and collected thereafter.
Bibliographic
Agosta, 82-83
Marillier,
<hi rend="i">DGR: An Ilustrated Memorial</hi>
, 193-194
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR Designer and Writer</hi>
, 95
Sharp,
<hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</hi>
, 246-248
Stephens,
<hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</hi>
, 92.
Surtees,
<hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi>
vol. 1, 145-146.