Fragment (from “On Mary's Portrait Which I Painted Six Years Ago”)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1847
Rhyme: abcbddeed
Meter: iambic tetrameter
Genre: dramatic monologue

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

The versification of this fragment, as well as the situation that can be inferred from it, indicates that it is part of a rejected set of verses written for “On Mary's Portrait Which I Painted Six Years Ago”. The physical manuscript itself is of an early date, which discounts the possibility that the fragment was written by DGR in 1869, when “On Mary's Portrait Which I Painted Six Years Ago” was recast as “The Portrait”

The only known text is a pencil draft housed in the Duke University Library. Paul Franklin Baum first published a text (imperfectly) in his Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library, 5 .

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 3-1843.raw.xml