Commentary
Introduction
Baum's commentaries are useful, not least for their critical sympathy with the ideology of these remarkably Victorian sonnets. As he observes, in these works “Anything like intelligence, anything like an individuality of her own, anything more than being an ornament and comfort to man, is not desiderated” (149). WMR has a similar comment, though given from a point of view more attentive to the Swednborgian/Blakean orientation of the sonnets (see the third): “A certain interchangeability of idea and of imagery—the things of time symbolizing the things of eternity, or
vice versā—appears
to me to be one of the most ruling qualities of Rossetti's poetry, and a
leading source of that difficulty or elusive character which many
readers feel in it. The present sonnet is a prominent example. The reader's
mind remains in suspense as to whether the poet is speaking of
what takes place in heaven (in the ordinary sense of that term), or of what
takes place on earth. It appears to me that, by strict attention to
the contents of this sonnet, one finds that he only speaks of what takes
place on earth.” (223) That last sentence undercores the “fleshly” emphasis that pervades what readers, especially early readers, were apt to call the “mystical” character of DGR's peculiar neo-platonism.
Textual History: Composition
DGR seems to have written these sonnets in late November-December 1880, as we
see from his letters of that period. That he had them all completed by 17 December is evident
from his letter of that date to Hall Caine: “I wish I had you by me to hear 3 sonnets with
which I wind up Part I of The House of Life. They are called True Woman and
are my best” (see Fredeman, Correspondence, forthcoming) and Bryson,
<hi rend="i">DGR and Jane Morris Correspondence</hi>
,
165
).
The earliest draft of “True Woman. I. Herself” is at
Princeton in the same folder with the earliest (pencil) draft of “True
Woman. III. Her Heaven”.
Separately at Princeton is the composite
“House of
Life”
sequence which has five manuscripts: for “True Woman. I. Herself” a
fair copy; for “True
Woman. II. Her Love” a fair
copy and a corrected copy;
and for “True Woman. III. Her Heaven” a
lightly corrected
and a heavily corrected copy. The
Fitzwilliam composite
“House of
Life”
sequence has three fair copies, one each for
“True Woman. I.
Herself”
,
“True Woman. II. Her Love ”
, and
“True Woman.
III. Her Heaven”
. There is also a fair copy of the three sonnets in the Bodleian's
miscellaneous collection
of DGR's verse.
Several draft scraps of these sonnets appear in DGR's notebooks. There is a
prose cartoon for
the three sonnet sequence as well as a draft of
lines 13-14 of “True
Woman. III. Her Heaven” scripted in Notebook III (Duke University Library). The Ashley
notebooks also have drafts: in Notebook II, line 1 and
lines 13-14 of “True
Woman. III. Her Heaven”;
Textual History: Revision
Printing History
First published in the 1881
<hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi>
and collected thereafter.
Pictorial
In his commentary on the sonnet WMR observes that his brother was painting
<hi rend="i">The Day-Dream</hi>
when writing these sonnets, and that the painting was originally ornamented with snowdrops (not honeysuckle).
Commentary on“II. Her Love”
Introduction
“II. Her Love”: Baum focuses on the conceit of the mirror and observes: “No one but Rossetti or John Donne could, or would, have treated it” in such an extended fashion (151). The remark is acute. Also worth noting is the deliberateness with which DGR continues to elaborate the figure of the mirror (see
“The Dark Glass”
and its related sonnets).
Bibliographic
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR Designer and Writer</hi>
, 221-224
Baum, ed.,
<hi rend="i">House of Life</hi>
, 148-153
Bernard Richards, “Rossetti's ‘True Woman’”, in
<hi rend="i">The Explicator</hi>
(Winter 1985), 19-20