Commentary
Introduction
The sonnet acquires greater force as part of
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<hi rend="i">The House
of Life</hi>
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project because there it is able as it were to
“look before and after”
. In 1847 DGR's career had yet to
unfold, but in 1869 his future's “narrow ways
”
appear more darkly lit precisely because of DGR's intervening years in
“the world”
. In this sense the poem's governing injunction
is self-reflexive, for DGR is here reimagining his old sonnet and its
1847 point of view by placing it in the
context the earlier sonnet foretold but could not have foreseen. This
context is the set of events called up in the poetical narrative
laid out in the sonnet sequence.
The significance of the 1847 version of the sonnet is best
explicated in relation to the picture that DGR made at the time to go with the
sonnet. This picture, which DGR finished only as a drawing, has little direct
autobiographical content—indeed, it represents a scene out of
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. In that
context, the sonnet's rhetoric is less personal than it is moral, with the
picture operating as an emblematic illustration of the sonnet.
Textual History: Composition
According to WMR:
“The sonnet
<hi rend="i">Retro me Sathana</hi>
must belong to
1847, being intended to pair with his picture of the same name”
(
<hi rend="i">Family Letters</hi> vol. 1
,
107
). Only one manuscript appears to survive: a corrected copy in the Fitzwilliam composite
“House of Life”
sequence.
Textual History: Revision
DGR made two substantive alterations early in the proof
process in 1869, and thereafter the text of the poem remained stable
through the final authorial publication in 1881.
Production History
DGR executed a drawing under this
name in July 1848 and he
projected but never carried out an oil version. The drawing depicts a
scene that has no imagistic relation to the sonnet. The picture shows a priest walking with a pious young woman, with Mephistopheles lurking in the rear.
The drawing was done in July 1848 and has much in common with DGR's
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</xref>
drawings of that
period.
Iconographic
The drawing recalls
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<hi rend="i">Faust</hi>
</xref>
but is not specifically an illustration of that work. It
operates more as an emblematic illustration of virtue being protected from
threatening evil.
Printing History
First printed in August 1869 as part of the
Penkill Proofs, the
sonnet remained in all proof stages and was published in the 1870
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<hi rend="i">Poems</hi>
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and thereafter. It is
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<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
</xref>
Sonnet XLII in the
1870 volume, and
Sonnet XC in 1881.
Literary
The poem is dominated by biblical usages and allusions.
The central text is taken from Jesus' rebuke of Peter who
protested when Jesus foretold his coming passion and death
(see Matthew 16:23). Rees points out that the
figure of the charioteer, and the figural treatment of Time, are probably in
debt to Shelley. Baum comments on the “Miltonic
inspiration”
of the sonnet.
Bibliographic
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR as Designer and Writer</hi>
, 250-251.
Marillier,
<hi rend="i">DGR: An Illustrated Memorial</hi>
,
17, 216
.
Mégroz,
<hi rend="i">Painter Poet of Heaven in Earth</hi>
, 48.
Baum,
<hi rend="i">House of Life</hi>
, 204.
Surtees,
<hi rend="i">A Catalogue Raisonné</hi> vol. 1
, 9.
Rees,
<hi rend="i">Poetry of DGR</hi>
, 81-82.