Cloud and Wind Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1871
abbaabbacddccd iambic 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 sonnet closes the sequence in the 1881 <xref doc="a.22-1881.raw"> <title level="wrk">“House of Life” that commenced with sonnet XL, “Severed Selves” . The previous sonnets in this subunit all preserve an ambiguity of reference so far as the Beloved was concerned. Here, however, the reader is led to make a primary association with the Innominata (biographically, Mrs.Morris). However, the octave's clear allusion (especially in lines 3-8) to the story of Orpheus and Euridice—a myth that recurs throughout the sequence—restores the ambiguity of reference via the recollection it carries of the lost Beloved (biographically, DGR's wife). The obliquity of this poetic move is important: it is the chief device for generating the sonnet's dark and haunted mood.

Baum was particularly drawn to the problem of the title, which he called “the prime difficulty” of the poem. He suggests that it refers to the vanity of the sonnet's address to inexplicable questions about death.

Textual History: Composition

Four copies of the sonnet survive. The earliest seems to be a corrected draft gathered in the Troxell composite “House of Life” sequence; the other three are the holograph fair copy in the Bodleian Kelmscott Love Sonnets group; the Library of Congress fair copy; and May Morris's fair copy in the Fitzwilliam composite “House of Life”.

Textual History: Revision

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> , 212 Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">House of Life</hi> , 128-129

The first edition of the <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> text Clearly recalling “The Blessed Damozel” . The first edition of the <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> text The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 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 O (Delaware Museum, first author's proof) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 3 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete first revise, author's corrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete first revise, uncorrected copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete first revise, uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete second revise, author's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 9 May 1881 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete second revise, uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 9 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, incomplete third revise, author's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 -1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete third revise, uncorrected copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete third revise, partial uncorrected copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, complete third revise, author's copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature O (Delaware Museum, final proof, uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 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 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0 Twelve Sonnets and Some Other Poems by Dante G. Rossetti (Library of Congress posthumous MS book) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848-1881 0