This song was written in Italian in 1849, when DGR gave it the title “Madonna
Consolata”.
DGR did not make his English
translation until October 1869, after he had recovered
the poem from his wife's
coffin. Both versions were embedded in the text of his
dramatic monologue, A Last
Confession.
Both Italian and English versions of this work recall DGR's translation project that
eventuated in the publication of The Early Italian Poets in 1861. The song is not at all
written as a pastiche of a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century work. Its style is much more
“modern”. Nonetheless, the reader is clearly meant to see the song as a
work whose historical descent traces itself back to the early Italian poets DGR translated in
his famous collection of 1861.
From a manuscript list DGR drew up in mid-1869, we know that the poem originally existed as a separate work, and that DGR thought to publish it as such in his 1870 volume.
Printing History
First published (both the Italian and the translation) in DGR's 1870 volume as part of A Last
Confession, and collected thereafter.
This collection contains 66 texts and images, including:
The 1870 Poems text
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This song was written in Italian in 1849, when DGR gave it the title “Madonna Consolata”. DGR did not make his English translation until October 1869, after he had recovered the poem from his wife's coffin. Both versions were embedded in the text of his dramatic monologue, A Last Confession.
Both Italian and English versions of this work recall DGR's translation project that eventuated in the publication of The Early Italian Poets in 1861. The song is not at all written as a pastiche of a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century work. Its style is much more “modern”. Nonetheless, the reader is clearly meant to see the song as a work whose historical descent traces itself back to the early Italian poets DGR translated in his famous collection of 1861.
From a manuscript list DGR drew up in mid-1869, we know that the poem originally existed as a separate work, and that DGR thought to publish it as such in his 1870 volume.
Printing History
First published (both the Italian and the translation) in DGR's 1870 volume as part of A Last Confession, and collected thereafter.