Thomas Chatterton Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1880 April 6
abbaabbacddccd 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> In 1880 DGR became preoccupied with the late eighteenth-century poet-prodigy Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), who committed suicide in London at age 17. His representation of the poet is intensely romantic and sentimental, which corresponds with the prevailing spirit of his age. Later scholarship has revealed a much more interesting and complex character.</p> <p>DGR's interest seems to have begun when his friend Theodore Watts-Dunton was commissioned to edit the selections from Chatterton that would appear in volume 3 of T. H. Ward's <xref doc="a."> <title level="bk"> <hi rend="i">English Poets</hi> . As he helped Watts-Dunton with the historical research he became fascinated—his brother thought inordinately so—with the legends that had grown up around the poet (see his correspondence with Watts-Dunton of April-May 1880, (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 80. 129-170passim ). His elaborate set of historical notes and copies of the poems are preserved in the British Library (Ashley 1416) and were first published by Doughty and Wahl in their edition of DGR's letters (see Doughty and Wahl, <hi rend="i">Letters</hi> , IV. 1766-1774 ). Additional materials are housed in the library of the Delaware Art Museum, including DGR's copies of Chatterton's “An Excelente Balade of Charitie” , “Wedding Ballad” , and “The Minstrel's Marriage Song” (both (from <hi rend="i">Aella</hi> ).

Textual History: Composition

DGR wrote the sonnet around 6 April 1880 (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 80. 113 ), as his comment in a letter of that date to Watts-Dunton shows. The draft manuscript is preserved in the library of the Delaware Art Museum. The poem was written as DGR was about to get heavily involved with Chatterton and his works—a project he undertook to help his friend Watts-Dunton. On 16 July he sent a fair copy of the poem in a letter to his mother. This letter and the fair copy of the sonnet is in the Getty Library.

Textual History: Revision

In an interesting letter of 7 May to Watts-Dunton DGR discusses his revisions for the sonnet: “Have improved the Chat[terto]n sonnet in one or two respects. I reflected that my meaning in the line ‘Even to that unknown shrine else deified’ was not that it would have been deified if known, but would have been so except for the interruption of his work by the death he chose. This I find by first scribble where the ‘unknown’ was an amendment on ‘secret,’ ‘sacred’ and ‘inmost.’ I propose now that the line run ‘Even to that inmost shrine else deified.’ ( Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 80. 160 ).

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

Although DGR originally wrote this sonnet to accompany Watts-Dunton's edition of Chatterton, (see Allen, <hi rend="i">Dear Mr Rossetti</hi> , 105), it seems clear that by July 1880, when he sent it to Christina and his mother, the sonnet was not going to be published in that way. It was first printed in the 1881 <xref doc="a.2-1881.rad.xml" from="313">Ballads and Sonnets</xref> as one of the group of sonnets he headed with the title <xref doc="a.24-1881.raw" from="313" to="317">Five English Poets</xref> . The sonnet is collected thereafter, but WMR altered the indentation in his 1886 edition and thereafter to correspond to the rhyme scheme. He also broke up the five-sonnet grouping and printed this sonnet, like the four others, separately.

Pictorial

DGR was keen to get a likeness of Chatterton, as he was for images related to Blake, Keats, and Shelley. However, he determined that getting an authentic image of Chatterton was unlikely due to the number of frauds on the market. The final line of the sonnet references DGR's view of this situation.

Henry Wallis, a fellow Pre-Raphaelite, painted the famous <hi rend="i">Death of Chatterton</hi> (1856), with red-headed George Meredith posing as Chatterton.

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Caine, <xref doc="a."> <hi rend="i">Recollections</hi> </xref> , 184-191.

Ballads and Sonnets first edition text See WMR's note (1911). DGR writes to Watts-Dunton 30 April 1880: “Have improved the Chatterton Sonnet in one or two respects. I reflected that my meaning in the line ‘Even to that unknown shrine else deified’ was not that it would have been deified if known, but would have been so except for the interruption of his work by the death he chose. Thus I find my first scribble where the ‘unknown’ was an amendment on ‘secret’ ‘ sacred’ and ‘inmost’. I propose now that the line run ‘Even to that inmost shrine else deified’.” (see Doughty and Wahl, <hi rend="i">Letters</hi> , IV. 1762 ). Redcliffe: St. Mary Redcliffe church, in Bristol, where Chatterton's imaginative creations and forgeries were inspired. Chatterton's family had been sextons of the church for two centuries. grave unknown: His remains was interred in a burying-ground attached to Shoe Lane Workhouse, in the parish of St Andrews, Holborn. A monument to his memory was erected in the graveyard of St. Mary Redcliffe church. 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 Thomas Chatterton (Delaware draft manuscript) DGR 1880 April 0 Rossetti Album (miscellaneous collection, Getty/Wormsley Library) DGR and others 1835-1933 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His Family-Letters with a Memoir (Volume Two) William Michael Rossetti 1970 0