Commentary
Introduction
Like the
<xref doc="a.14-1869.raw">Willowwood</xref>
sequence, this pair had a key function in
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
project from the very beginning. At least five of these six sonnets
were written in two days in December 1868, and all six were complete by
mid-January 1869.
<xref doc="a.14-1869.raw">Willowwood</xref>
opened the initial sequence of
sixteen that DGR printed in the
<xref doc="a.ap4.f7.5.rad" workcode="52-1869">Fortnightly Review</xref>
in March 1869, and “Newborn
Death” closed that sequence. In terms of the structure of
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
, these sonnets clearly reach back to the
beginning—specifically, to
<xref doc="a.1-1869.raw">Bridal Birth</xref>
, which was the first sonnet in the 1870
<xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="3-1868">Poems</xref>
(it was Sonnet II in 1881).
The climactic position of the
“Newborn
Death” sonnets is underscored by the sonnet immediately
preceding,
<xref doc="a.15-1870.raw">“He and I”</xref>
, which was a last addition to the sequence for the 1870 volume.
Having culminated his via negativa in
<xref doc="a.15-1870.raw">“He and I”</xref>
, the poet now seeks to imagine the shape of a life in death. The
figures of the playful child and the “helpful
daughter
” in the first sonnet define the benevolence
implied in the final image (lines 13-14). Recalling the trope of drinking
Lethe's water of oblivion, DGR subtlely but certainly alters it: line 14
represents a gift-giving ceremony, and line 13 speaks not of forgetfulness
but of awareness.
The octave of the second sonnet acknowledges but also questions the first
sonnet's final benevolent figures. The sestet then puts the question to that
questioning. The implication of the sestet appears to be an imagining of
Death not as a terminus to the dynamics of living but as an integral part of
those dynamics. In making this imaginative proposal DGR is of course drawing
on the mythological resources of a Christian economy, as he does in all of
his work. But it is important to recognize that he recovers those resources
in an aesthetic mode. DGR imagines the figures of Love, Song, and Art
undergoing a kind of Liebestod (lines
12-13), and that imagination then transforms itself into the paradox of the
final line. But in this context the paradox, which expresses a Christan
commonplace, comes to us in a purely (in every sense) figural
form—exactly the way Christian ideas are handled everywhere by
DGR, most memorably in his early poems, and most unmistakeably in the
<xref doc="a.9-1848.s40.raw">“Mary's Girlhood”</xref>
sonnets.
Thus the “meaning
” of the final line,
transparent in a Christian economy, here turns deeply
mysterious—some would say (and have said), turns meaningless, as
if DGR were simply recapitulating formulary terms and ideas. But a less
orthodox reader would argue that DGR's treatment represents an act of
“saving the appearances
”. Blake
called it keeping the divine vision in a time of trouble. DGR's
“faith
” here, if such it can be called,
is at once decorative and dessicated, for he is aware that the Christian
mythos, like his own works, survive only as “cold
commemorative
” things (
<xref doc="a.2-1868.raw">“A Superscription”</xref>
line 14). Hence the adherence to all these loved but lost forms,
all the “dead deathless
” hours, becomes
a type of dark faithfulness: as if DGR drew life out of death precisely by
acknowledging that it cannot be done, and therefore must be undertaken.
Textual History: Composition
It has long been believed that DGR wrote these two sonnets around 19 December
1868 (because of WMR's diary for 19 December 1868 where he says that DGR had
just written a sonnet on death, which was assumed to be one of this pair
(see WMR,
Preraphaelite Diaries and Letters
339
). But in fact it was written much earlier, in August, when DGR sent
copies of the two poems in a letter to
James Smetham with a request for his opinion about three possible readings
for line 11 of the second sonnet (see Fredeman,
Correspondence
68. 120.
The sonnet on death mentioned by WMR in his diary seems not to have been any
of the sixteen that he initially published in the
<xref doc="a.ap4.f7.5.rad" workcode="52-1869">Fortnightly Review</xref>
in March 1869 under the heading
<xref doc="a.52-1869.raw">“Of Life, Love, and Death: Sixteen Sonnets”</xref>
. It was perhaps the sonnet
<xref doc="a.14-1870.raw">“Death's Songsters”.</xref>
.
Corrected copies of the two sonnets are also gathered in the Fitzwilliam
composite
“House of Life”
sequence, along with a fair copy of the second sonnet in Charles
Fairfax Murray's hand.
Textual History: Revision
Neither of the sonnets' texts were substantively changed in any of their
various printings.
Printing History
First printed as (the concluding) Sonnets XV-XVI in the initial
<xref doc="a.ap4.f7.5.rad" workcode="3-1868">Fortnightly Review</xref>
sequence of sonnets (March 1869) of
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
project. The poems were printed again in thePenkill Proofs in
August and kept through all prepublication texts until the publication of
the 1870
<xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="3-1868">Poems</xref>
. The sonnets are numbered XLVIII-XLIX in
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
as published in the 1870 volume, and XCIX-C in
the sequence as published in the 1881 Ballads
and Sonnets.
Autobiographical
Line 11 of the first sonnet of the pair calls attention to the way DGR
repeatedly treats his own life as if it were a myth to be mined for
imaginative details. Here the birth of the poet's stillborn daughter is
(once again) recalled (see
<xref doc="a.10-1870.raw">“Stillborn Love”</xref>
as well as the running theme of the child in the sequence).
Commentary on“Newborn Death I”
Introduction
“Newborn Death I”: This
sonnet concludes in several questions that are not answered in either of
the sonnets. But the doleful import that might surround such questions
is sharply mitigated in the emblematic options offered in this sonnet's
sestet. As is usual with DGR, when problematic issues arise the works
tend to respond with symbolic figurae
rather than with ideas or thematic exposition. Here, the figures
revealed in the sestet generate a set of further figures in the sonnet's
companion, where the persistence of the rhetoric of questioning itself
becomes a figure of the persistence of desire and erotic purpose.
Commentary on“Newborn Death II”
Introduction
“Newborn Death II”: As
<xref doc="a.3-1868.raw">“Newborn Death I”</xref>
connects directly to its predecessor,
<xref doc="a.15-1870.raw">“He and I”</xref>
, so this sonnet connects directly to its predecessor,
<xref doc="a.3-1868.raw">“Newborn Death I”</xref>
, and in particular to the question that is left standing at the
end of the latter.
Bibliographic
Baum, ed.,
<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
219-222
J. Gardner,
<xref doc="a.pr461.v53.rad" link="dead" workcode="3-1868" from="15" to="27">“Newborn Death Sonnets” </xref>
(1982), 15-27
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer.</hi>
258-260