Genius in Beauty Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1871
abbaaccadeedde 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 follows thematically and stylistically upon <xref doc="a.5-1871.raw">the previous sonnet</xref> and clearly calls back to the earlier sonnet <xref doc="a.1-1868.s212.raw"> <title level="wrk">“The Portrait” . The relation is partly but significantly drawn by one of DGR's most characteristic (and most subtle) techniques: making a rhyme with equivalent but different words whose nuanced relation is, paradoxically, enhanced by being made so recondite. The word “compassed” (line 4) is rhyming with the word “compassionate” which dominates the opening of the earlier sonnet.

The intratextual relation of the two sonnets is crucial to see because we are to understand that the “love-spell” mentioned here (line 7) ultimately derives from the “Lord of all compassionate control”. This Lord is not DGR or the artist (he mentions three of the greatest, Homer, Dante, and Michelangelo, to underscore his point), nor is it the Beatricean woman. It is the god of Love, that is to say, a power that pervades all the agencies that function in this dynamic of love, including the objective work of art—picture or poem, as in this particular case. All of these agencies operate in a set of codependent relations, all cast (that is to say) their own particular love-spells.

Textual History: Composition

Three manuscripts survive: the corrected fair copy at Princeton, the May Morris copy in the Fitzwilliam composite manuscript, and the fair copy in the Bodleian “Kelmscott Love Sonnets” group.

Textual History: Revision

WMR suggested a pair of revisions, to line 6 and to line 12 (see the Brancroft proof with his marginal notes). DGR ignored both, though one or both have found their way into later editions. See below, textual notes.

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

First published in the 1881 <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> and collected thereafter.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

WMR, <hi rend="i">DGR Designer and Writer</hi> , 196-197 Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">House of Life</hi> , 91-92

The 1881 first edition of <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> bequeathes: WMR called attention to the uncommon form of the word, which DGR evidently chose for its visual rhyme with “breathes” (line 7). DGR kept his text. When WMR published his collected editions beginning in 1886, however, he changed the form to “bequeathes” and all subsequent editions have followed that unauthorized editorial move. likewise: “like wise wd I think be decidedly preferable” (WMR's note, Bancroft proof). DGR did not accept the emendation, but WMR introduced it into his collected edition of 1911. Later texts that follow 1911 repeat the unauthorized emendation. The 1881 first edition of <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> 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 N (Delaware Museum, first revise, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April 28 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, first revise, copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 April 28 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, second revise, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 3 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, second revise, copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 3 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, third revise, author's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 4 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, third revise, duplicate copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 4 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, third revise, duplicate copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 4 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, fourth revise, copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, fourth revise, copy 2, corrected) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, fourth revise, copy 3, corrected) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 6 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, final proof, WMR's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, final proof, DGR's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 - 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, final proof, partial and uncorrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May- 1881 June 0 Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature N (Delaware Museum, final proof, uncorrected copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1881 May 18 -1881 June 0 The House of Life, A Sonnet Sequence (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Princeton/Troxell collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869-1881 0 The House of Life (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1845 - 1881 0 The Bodleian Notebook (“Kelmscott Love Sonnets”) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1874 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0