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Sharp, DGR: A Record and a Study, 304-305.
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Gregory, “Life and Works of DGR” vol. 2, 124.
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Baum, Poems, Ballads and Sonnets, 177.
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Lange, “Swinburne und Rossetti”.
This collection contains 43 texts and images, including:
1881 Poems First Edition text
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This poem—one of DGR's three translations from Villon—opens the important last part of the opening section of the 1870 volume This section of the book, titled simply Poems, establishes the centrality of the interrelated themes of love, death, and art. The final part of the opening section of the book contains a series of translations that are meant to underscore the transcultural foundation of DGR's poetic focus.
DGR's ballad is the best (and most celebrated) of his translations from Villon. Sharp praised it extravagantly ( DGR: A Record and a Study, 304-305 ), but Baum is more measured: “The difficulties of the ballade form obliged him to greater liberties [than in his translation of Villon's rondeau]. For the substitution of Hipparchia he cannot of course be blamed; but his omission of cousin german in l. 4 and his change of l. 3 of the envoi are less excusable; and his ‘yester-year’ is too poetical for antan” ( Baum, Poems, Ballads and Sonnets, 177n ). See the general commentary for all three translations.
Textual History: Composition
According to WMR (1911) the translation was made in 1869; if so, it must have been executed by August, since it appears in the Penkill Proofs, the first of the prepublication texts DGR prepared for the eventual publication of his 1870 Poems.
Printing History
First printed in August 1869 in the Penkill Proofs, the first of the prepublication texts DGR prepared for the eventual publication of his 1870 Poems. It appeared in the latter and was reprinted in his “New Edition” of 1881 and collected thereafter
Translation
DGR is translating Villon's Le Testament lines 329-356.