On One Condition

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848
Rhyme: abbaabbacdecde
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Bibliography

◦ Paull F. Baum, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library (1931), 14-16, 56-65

◦ Frances Winwar, “Dante Gabriel's or William Michael's?” (March 1933), 312-315

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

This is one of the group of sonnets that DGR and WMR wrote to rhymes set by each other. The brothers played this verse game between 1847-1849, and principally in 1848. The rule was that the sonnet should be written quickly, in five to ten minutes (see WMR's note in 1911, 673-674 ). Twenty-six survive, fourteen of which were published by WMR in his edition of 1911, pages 263-267 . Paull Franklin Baum published the rest in his Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library, 56-65 among which was this poem.

Printing History

First published by Baum in his Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library (1931), 60 , presumably from the manuscript text at Duke.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 34-1848.raw.xml