Jacopo da Lentino. “Canzonetta. Of his Lady, and of his making her Likeness.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?; 1861
Rhyme: ababcddc
Meter: iambic trimeter
Genre: canzonetta

Bibliography

“Table of Poets” in Early Italian Poets vol. 1, xxvi-xxvii.

Poeti del primo secolo vol. 1, 255-257.

◦ Panvini Le rime della scuola siciliana vol. 1, 29-31.

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

The translation follows the rhyme scheme of the original but at several points its sense rendering is very free; and the final stanza departs markedly in sense from Lentino's plain meaning. That kind of interpretive invention is quite uncommon in DGR's translations.

DGR's source text is Poeti del primo secolo (I. 255-257).

Textual History: Composition

As with most of DGR's translations of the early Italian poets, the date of this cannot be precisely determined. DGR probably wrote it early, in the late 1840s.

Printing History

The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 163d-1861.raw.xml