Selected Poems

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Clive Wilmer (Editor)

For critics like John Ruskin and Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1892) was one of the great creative figures of the day, a painter and a poet of major stature. Yeats and the young Pound regarded him as an exemplary figure of solitary dedication to art and beauty.

He called the sonnet 'a moment's monument', and his best short lyrics are instants of oppressed emotion cut free of time. In this, as in the suggestiveness of his imagery, he anticipates the French Symbolists. He can also be regarded as the founder of modern verse translation, not only for the freshness of his versions but also for his choice of poets---Villon, Cavalcanti and the young Dante.

In this selection, Clive Wilmer has made a personal choice, emphasizing the 'pure poetry' of the lyrics at the expense of the more conventionally Victorian monologues and narratives. He has also included a generous selection from the translations, and provided a biographical and critical introduction.

Genres: Poetry, 19th Century, Victorian, Classics

152 pages, Hardcover

First published April 12, 2002

About the author

British poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, brother of Christina Georgina Rossetti, founded the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, a society, in England in 1848 to advance the style and spirit of Italian painting before Raphael (Raffaelo Sanzio); his known portraits and his vividly detailed, mystic poems, include "The Blessed Damozel" (1850).

This illustrator and translator with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais later mainly inspired and influenced a second generation of artists and writers, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. His work also influenced the Symbolists, a group of chiefly French writers and artists, who of the late 1800s rejected realism and used symbols to evoke ideas and emotions. He served as a major precursor of Aestheticism, an artistic and intellectual movement or the doctrine, originating in Britain in the late 19th century, that from beauty, the basic principle, derives all other, especially moral, principles.

Reviews

[Rachel Baack]

I have not read this entire anthology, but the works included in it that I have read are listed and rated below:

“Autumn Idleness” (from “The House of Life: A Sonnet Sequence”): The speaker describes the frosty end of November in which he wanders, unsure what he should do. Rating: 1/5

“The Blessed Damozel”: This poem tells of two lovers who have been separated by the death. The woman, the “blessed damozel,” has died and left her lover alive without her. In this poem, the lovers are able to communicate, as the young woman is conflicted about fully entering into the afterlife without her love and has not yet done so. Rating: 2/5

"The Orchard Pit": The speaker describes a recurring dream in which he sees the sinister Belle Dame, who has "eyes of Death" watching some people in the orchard pit. Rating: 1/5

“Sestina. Of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni”: This poem is a personification of stones and comparison of them to a lady. It was originally written by Dante Alighieri and translated by Rossetti. Rating: 2/5

“Sudden Light”: A short poem that expresses the feeling of having the same experiences once before. Rating: 2/5

"The Woodspurge": The speaker recounts his experience of simple observation amidst grief. Rating: 3.5/5

[Cooper Renner]

Of course I didn’t read most of this: earnest emotional barings of the poet’s soul almost always leave me cold. But there’s a musical strength to Blessed Damozel; Sister Helen updates the historic ballad form for a swell and oblique tale of woe; and The Woodspurge is restrained and lovely.