Love-Sweetness Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1870
abbaabbacddccd iambic pentameter sonnet
<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>From the earliest commentaries, including both Buchanan's attack and DGR's rejoinder, the sonnet has been read as a celebration of the congruent beauties and pleasures of body and soul—one of the central themes of the sequence. The sonnet pivots around lines 9-10: after the catalogue of the octave, the text here seems brinked for a move toward a sensuous extremity. In erotic love poetry the culminating “<quote>sweet</quote>” would have been sexual, though usually expressed in some poetic artifice or turn of phrase. Here DGR inverts that traditional sexual expectation and moves into a description of a culminant spiritual encounter. The wit of this turn is such that it forces the reader to carry the (expected) sexual meanings over to this new set of spiritual assertions. As a result, the thematic argument is reinforced at the core of the sonnet's aesthetic action.</p> </section> <section type="texthistcomp"> <head>Textual History: Composition</head> <p>The poem was one of the last two written for and added to the 1870 <title level="doc"> <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="7-1870">Poems</xref> , as his letter to his publisher Ellis indicates (see Doughty and Wahl, <hi rend="i">Letters</hi> II. 828 : 26 March 1870). The sonnet was apparently written at that time. The only manuscript known is C. F. Murray's copy in the Fitzwilliam composite “House of Life” manuscript.

Textual History: Revision

Once corrected in the revise proof, the text remained unchanged from 1870 onwards.

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

First printed in a revise proof sheet (along with <xref doc="a.15-1870.raw">He and I</xref> ) for the March 1870 Proofs for the first edition of the 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="7-1870">Poems</xref> (Lewis's state 15 of the 1869-1870 pre-publication documents). Two copies of this revise proof are known. The sonnet is <xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">The House of Life</xref> Sonnet XIII in the 1870 volume, and Sonnet XXI in 1881.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

The sonnet comes out of a highly developed tradition of love poetry that ultimately depends upon the Christian idea of the Ladder of Perfection. DGR's <xref doc="a.1-1861.raw"> <hi rend="i">Early Italian Poets</hi> </xref> project exhibits the tradition in texts too numerous to cite. One notes, however, Lapo Gianni's ballata <xref doc="a.150d-1861.raw">“A Message in charge for his Lady Lagia”</xref> , which catalogues an ascending order of the lady's virtues. Also notable would be Fazio Degli Uberti's canzone <xref doc="a.236d-1861.raw">“His Portrait of his Lady, Angiola of Verona”</xref> . Cavalcanti's sonnet <xref doc="a.130d-1861.raw">“To Guido Orlandi . . . In Praise of Guido Orlandi's Lady”</xref> is also interesting for the way it emphasizes the interpenetration of the lady's physical and spiritual virtues.

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Baum, ed., <hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi> , 95-97. Fontana, “Representations of the Kiss” , 80-88 Lewis, <hi rend="i">The Trial Book Fallacy</hi> , 129-131. Sharp, <hi rend="i">DGR: A Record and a Study</hi> , 422-423. WMR, <hi rend="i">Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer</hi> , 198.

1870 Poems First Edition text See WMR's note (1911) Baum queried this image: “why feet— rime?” (Baum, <hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi> 96 ). A figural reason also suggests itself: the lines imagine (literally) an elevated or skiey space inhabited by numerous pairs of lovers. DGR is probably remembering Dante's vision of the emparadised souls who stream across his vision at the end of the <xref doc="a.dante002.2.rad" link="dead"> <hi rend="i">Paradiso</hi> </xref> . One may as well recall DGR's own representation of a host of embracing lovers that form an enskied backdrop to his painting of <xref doc="a.1-1847.s244.raw"> <hi rend="i">The Blessed Damozel</hi> </xref> . 1870 Poems First Edition text Poems (1870): Proofs for first edition, Princeton/Troxell Copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 1-7 0 Poems (1870): First Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 April 26 0 Poems (1870): Second Edition (DGR's corrected copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 May 0 Poems (1870): Second Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 May 0 Poems (1870): Third Edition (copy 1) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 June 0 Poems (1870): Third Edition (copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 June 0 Poems (1870): Fourth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 July (or early August) 0 Poems (1870): Fifth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1871 0 Poems (1870): Sixth Edition Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1872 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition 1873 November 15 (late November or early December) 0 Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition, with author's corrections (Yale copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1873 November 15 (late November or early December) 0 Poems, Privately Printed: Second Trial Book, Alice Boyd/Lasner copy. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1869 November 25 0 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 1 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 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 Stealthy School of Criticism (Huntington Library unique proof) D. G. Rossetti 1871 0 The House of Life (composite manuscript posthumously arranged, Fitzwilliam Museum) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1845 - 1881 0 The Athenaeum, 1871, Part II 1871 July - 1871 December 0 Ashley 1402 (Revise Page Proofs for the sonnets He and I and Love-Sweetness) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 0 Huntington Library (Revise Page Proofs for sonnets He and I and Love-Sweetness) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 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 One) William Michael Rossetti 1895 0 Love-Sweetness (revise Page Proofs, Princeton/Troxell collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 0 Love-Sweetness (revise Page Proofs, Princeton/Troxell collection) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 March 0