Bartolomeo di Sant' Angelo. “Sonnet. He jests concerning his Poverty.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1861
Rhyme: abbaabbacdeedc
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

The subject of the poem and its witty, casual manner must have appealed directly to DGR, whose attitude to his own poverty in his younger years was very similar. DGR's source text is Poeti del Primo Secolo (I. 431). The translation is close, except for the final two words, which DGR threw in to complete the rhyme.

Textual History: Composition

This is almost certainly an early translation, probably 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: 233d-1861.raw.xml