Commentary
Introduction
Though quite readable as an integral piece, this sonnet from
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
sequence
clearly reaches back to the central idea of
<xref doc="a.1-1869.raw">Bridal Birth</xref>
and anticipates the visionary experience of the
<xref doc="a.14-1869.raw">Willowwood</xref>
sequence. The sonnet defines one of the types of experience cited in
<xref doc="a.1-1869.raw">Bridal Birth</xref>
(line
13) as “Death's nuptial
change
”. Along with the next two (related sonnets), DGR is
making a birth image, or New Life image, out of the “little death”
undergone in sexual union. The sestet defines this New Life in a
series of quasi-allegorical figures.
Lines 7-8, which relate directly to the
<xref doc="a.14-1869.raw">Willowwood</xref>
experience,
sharply locate the problematic character of the event. The entire
significance of the Orpheus allusion only appears when the autobiographical
subtext is allowed to surface: for as DGR maps the Orpheus/Eurydice story to
his own life, the backward look to the poet's (dead) wife suggests the
loss of love and union with love. In DGR's case, the loss will be experienced
as an intrusion of guilt and remorse into the space of his present erotic
relations—specifically, his love for Jane Morris. The disaster will
later be named by DGR
<xref doc="a.4-1854.raw">Lost on Both
Sides</xref>
.
Textual History: Composition
Before mid-autumn 1869
(see Peattie,
<hi rend="i">Letters of WIlliam Michael Rossetti</hi>
, 25
); Fredeman dates it more specifically 1869, by which he means
before August, when the sonnet was set in type for the
Penkill Proofs
(see Fredeman,
“Rossetti's ‘In Memoriam’”
). Since the
sonnet is not among those included in the March printing
(
<xref doc="a.ap4.f7.5.rad" from="[266]">Fortnightly Review</xref>
)
of sixteen sonnets, the presumption has been
that it was written between March and August. Two manuscripts are collected in the Fitzwilliam manuscript gathering of
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
materials: a first draft and a corrected copy.
Textual History: Revision
The text in the Penkill Proofs is not altered in subsequent
printings.
Reception
This sonnet was not attacked by Buchanan in
<xref doc="a.ps3231.b85.rad" link="dead">“The Fleshly School of Poetry”</xref>
, although it seems no less (or more) objectionable in
Buchanan's terms than
<xref doc="a.5-1869.raw">Nuptial
Sleep</xref>
, which so exercised Buchanan.
Printing History
First printed in August 1869 as part of
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
materials in the Penkill Proofs. The poem was reprinted thereafter in all subsequent texts. It is
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of
Life</xref>
Sonnet IV in the 1870 volume, and Sonnet VI in
1881.
Autobiographical
The Orpheus/Eurydice allusion in the octave involves an oblique
reference to DGR and his dead wife Elizabeth.
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref>
sequence represents an imaginative reinvolvement with her, and the Orpheus story
defines the limits—in a certain respect, the failure—to recover
this early experience of love in his life.
Bibliographic
Baum, ed.,
<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
72-73 (Paull Franklin Baum, ed.).
Fontana, “Descriptions of the Kiss,”, 85-86.
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer.</hi>
188-189.