Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Painter Poet of Heaven in Earth: Rossetti Archive Document R. L. Mégroz 1 This electronic document is a partial reconstruction of the original edition. Only the material relevant to the texts of DGR is gathered into this work. The complete document is scheduled for transcription later. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Painter Poet of Heaven in Earth R. L. Megroz Faber & Gwyer Chiswick Press London 1929 pr5246.m4 Commentary
Introduction

Essentially a work of biography and biographical criticism, Mégroz's volume emphasizes the intersections of DGR's life and work. As the author puts it in his introduction, “his life and works are reflections of each other, and both are reflections of an extraordinarily fixed personality.” (vii). Mégroz prints two stanzas of DGR's early poem on Napoleon, entitled <xref doc="a.2-1845.raw">“<quote>The End of It</quote>”</xref> , which was written June 18, 1845. Mégroz takes his text from Wise's Catalogue of the Ashley Library (1922).

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Wise, <hi rend="i">The Ashley Library </hi> IV. 109-11. Fennell, <hi rend="i">Annotated Bibliography </hi> 235.

It was inexact to describe this piece, which Polidori printed in 1843, as a “first attempt”, for <xref doc="a.1-1835.raw"> <hi rend="i">The Slave</hi> </xref> , dated in his fifth year, and a prose romance, never finished, called <xref doc="a.1-1843.s10.raw"> <hi rend="i">Sorrentino</hi> </xref> , written during school years, preceded it. But in writing to Swinburne in 1870 the poet describes a still later piece, written in 1845, as “what I may call my first poem (after still more childish things) I believe, and enclose it you for a lark. Of course it is on nothing less than Napoleon at Waterloo!” 1 It is called <xref doc="a.2-1845.raw">“<quote>The End Of It</quote>”</xref> , and has a biographical interest, showing that the youthful Dante Gabriel was not quite oblivious of the world's events. Here are two of the four stanzas which are printed in Mr. Wise's Catalogue:

 His brows met, and his teeth were set, And his mouth seemed in pain, And madness closed and grappled with him As they turned his bridle-rein. And albeit his eyes went everywhere, Yet they saw not anything: And he drew the bit tightly, for he thought That his horse was stumbling. ---------------

1 Vol. iii, Catalogue of the Ashley Library.

There was a great shouting about him And the weight of a great din: But what was the battle he had around To the battle he had within? A pond in motion to the stress of the ocean, A lamp to a furnace-eye, Or the wind's wild-weeping fits To the voice of Austerlitz When it shook upon the sky.