Song, 'tis my will that thou do seek Love. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1861
AbCAbCCDDX with refrain XYYX iambic trimeter and pentameter ballata The Italian original is a ballata mezzana.
<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>Dante's ballad is a highly elaborate rhetorical work, perhaps even an early technical exercise. Its placement in the <xref doc="a.9d-1861.raw"> <title level="wrk"> <hi rend="i">Vita Nuova</hi> seems clearly to have been an ex post facto move of the same kind as we saw in the case of his autobiography's opening sonnet. (In all such cases Dante is also suggesting that Love's prevenient purposes have been at work in his poetry from the beginning.) DGR's translations always register this fundamental action in Dante's work, and in this case the translation's stiff archaisms seem especially apt.

The complex rhetoric, viewed in one light, can appear quite unpoetical, as various commentators remark when they discuss Dante's ballata as an early verse exercise. But read in the context of Love's secret ministry the style can also appear as nothing less than a prophetic forecast of the triumphant stil novo that will break into full measure later in the <hi rend="i">Vita Nuova</hi> , most spectacularly in “Ladies that have intelligence in love” .

DGR's source text was “Ballata, io vo'che tu ritruovi Amore” in the third volume of Fraticelli's edition of Dante's <hi rend="i">Opere Minori di Dante Alighieri</hi> .

Textual History: Composition

This is an early translation, in the 1840s, perhaps as early as 1846.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

The translation was first published in 1861 in <hi rend="i">The Early Italian Poets</hi> ; it was reprinted in 1874 in <hi rend="i">Dante and his Circle</hi> .

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

“Introduction to Part II” (in Early Italian Poets) 189-193 Foster and Boyd, <xref doc="a.pq4309.a1.1967.rad" link="dead" from="42" to="45"> <hi rend="i">Dante's Lyric Poetry</hi> </xref> , I.42-45 (II. 67-71) . De Robertis, ed., Vita Nuova, 77-82 .

The Early Italian Poets text The Early Italian Poets text The Early Italian Poets From Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), the Fitzwilliam Proof Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 The Early Italian Poets From Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), the Alderman annotated copy Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 The Early Italian Poets From Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), Presentation Copy to Frederick Shields. Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 The Early Italian Poets From Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300) (the Princeton illustrated copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 The Early Italian Poets from Ciullo d'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300) (Proof Copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 The Early Italian Poets From Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), the Wrenn Proof Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 The Early Italian Poets From Ciullo D'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300), the Yale University Beinecke Library Proof Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1861 0 Dante and His Circle: With the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100—1200—1300). Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1874 0 The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, vol. 2 (1886) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1886 0 The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911) Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti 1911 0