John Keats Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1880 February
abbaaccaddeffe iambic pentameter sonnet
<artist/> <location/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>The sonnet focuses on Keats's life rather than on his literary work, as Caine's commentary was the first to point out. The sonnet thus becomes primarily a cultural rather than a literary or aesthetic exegesis. In this connection, one of the most striking passages is line 8, whose implications are considerable. DGR appears to be drawing a contrast between the alienated vitality of London, sketched at the opening of the octave, with “Dead Rome”, where Keats (in this representation) chose to take an exile's rest. DGR argues that Keats's participation in visionary realms (“Castalian brink and Latmos' steep”) was inward and psychic.</p> <p>The opening of the sonnet certainly recalls both <xref doc="a.3-1848.raw"> <title level="wrk">“Jenny” and “Found” .

Textual History: Composition

DGR wrote the sonnet toward the end of February 1880, as we see from his letter to Jane Morris of 29 February (see Fredeman, Correspondence , 80. 65 ). The earliest copy is the draft in the library of the Delaware Art Museum. DGR then tried to make a fair copy from this draft but found himself continuing with revisions. This second copy was the basis for a third copy, also in the Delaware library. The second copy is the cancelled draft now in the Fitzwilliam Museum Library. Two later fair copies exist, one in the Bodleian and another in the British Library. Notebook IV in the British Library has draft material related to the composition of the sonnet (37v-40r).

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

It was first published in the 1881 <xref doc="a.2-1881.1stedn.rad" workcode="4-1880" from="316">Ballads and Sonnets</xref> as one of the group of sonnets he headed with the title <xref doc="a.2-1881.1stedn.rad" workcode="24-1881" from="313" to="317">Five English Poets</xref> . It was collected thereafter but in the 1911 <xref doc="a.pr5240.f11.rad" from="230" workcode="4-1880">Works</xref> the five-sonnet grouping is removed by WMR and this sonnet, like the four others, is printed separately.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Caine, <xref doc="a."> <hi rend="i">Recollections</hi> </xref> , 166-175.

The 1881 <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> first edition text Moon's eclise: an elliptical reference to Keats's <xref doc="a.">Endymion</xref> and to the significance of that poem from DGR's point of view: i.e., that it represented a new departure for English poetry. DGR glances at the epitaph on Keats's tombstone (chosen by himself) in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. The 1881 <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> first edition text The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), first edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 October 17 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), second edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1882), fourth edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1882 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), (author's proofs, British Library copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April-June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, author's first proof, partial copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, author's first revise, partial copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 10 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, first revise, complete copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 10 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, second revise, copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 (circa) 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, second revise proof, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 (circa) 0 Small Notebook 4 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1879-1880 0 Small Notebook 4 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1879-1880 0 Small Notebook 4 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1879-1880 0 Small Notebook 4 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1879-1880 0 Small Notebook 4 (British Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1879-1880 0 John Keats (British Library fair copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1880 0 John Keats (Delaware first draft) DGR 1880 0 John Keats (Delaware corrected copy) DGR 1880 0 The House of Life (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1845 - 1881 0 Bodleian Notebook II DGR 1870-1880 ? 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0