The Honeysuckle

<author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnliterary> <citntranslationoriginal> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citntranslationoriginal> <citnpictorial> <title/> <artist/> <location/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl> <title/> <author/> <city/> <publisher/> <date/> <pages/> </bibl> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>The poem is an erotic parable, much in the manner of certain of Blake's <title level="wrk"> <xref doc="a.blake002.rad" link="dead"> <hi rend="i">Songs of Innocence and of Experience</hi> </xref> : for instance, <xref doc="a.blake011.rad" link="dead">“My Pretty Rose Tree”</xref> and <xref doc="a.blake010.rad" link="dead">“The Garden of Love”</xref> . One might as well recall Wordsworth's <xref doc="a.wordsworth002.rad" link="dead">“Nutting”</xref> .

Textual History: Composition

According to WMR, the poem was written in the summer of 1853, while DGR was at Stratford-Upon-Avon (see Gregory, Life and Works of DGR II. 128 ). This date is confirmed by the copy DGR included in his letter to William Bell Scott of 13 July 1853, where he says he composed the poem “yesterday”. This early copy differs from the received text in many respects. A later manuscript, copied in anticipation of the 1870 publication of his poems, dates from the summer of 1869. The latter is close to the text DGR eventually published.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

First printed as part of the pre-publication process for the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="7-1853">Poems</xref> , in the Penkill Proofs, August 1869. Those proofs have no special organization of the poetic units. At the next proof stage, the so-called A Proofs (Sept. 1869), this poem is placed in a loosely organized section under the heading <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">Sonnets and Songs, Towards a Work to be Called <title level="wrk">The House of Life . DGR experimented with the order of this section until, in the final proof stage (realized at the beginning of March, 1870) this poem and ten others were grouped as <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref> 's integral section of <xref doc="a.44b-1869.raw">Songs</xref> . This is where it was first published in the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" from="252" workcode="7-1853"> <hi rend="i">Poems</hi> </xref> . In the 1881 <xref doc="a.1-1881.1stedn.rad" from="252" workcode="7-1853"> <hi rend="i">Poems. A New Edition</hi> </xref> , this section is detached from <xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">The House of Life</xref> and placed under the heading <xref doc="a.20-1881.raw">Lyrics</xref> , and two other poems are added to the group.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Gregory, Life and Works of DGR II. 128

1881 Poems First Edition text