The Cloud Before the Storm

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848
Rhyme: iambic pentameter
Meter: abbaabbacdecde
Genre: sonnet

Bibliography

◦ Paull F. Baum, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library (1931), 14-16, 56-65

◦ Frances Winwar, “Dante Gabriel's or William Michael's?” (March 1933), 312-315

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

This is one of the group of sonnets that DGR and WMR wrote to rhymes set by each other. The brothers played this verse game with each other between 1847-1849, and principally in 1848. The rule was that the sonnet should be written quickly, in five to ten minutes (see 1911, 673-674 ). Twenty-six survive, fourteen of which were published by WMR in his edition of 1911, 263-267 . Paull Franklin Baum published the rest in his Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library, 56-65 among which was this poem.

Although all of the sonnets first published by Baum are in DGR's autograph, Frances Winwar has argued that a number of them are not DGR's but WMR's. This is one of those Winwar assigns to DGR.

Printing History

First published by Baum in his Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library (1931), 62-63 . He printed the heavily corrected manuscript text.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 36-1848.raw.xml