Sunset

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

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

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

This is another of the group of sonnets that DGR wrote to rhymes set by WMR. The brothers played this verse game with each other between 1847-1849, and principally in 1848. The rule was that the sonnet should be written quickly, in five to ten minutes (see 1911, pages 673-674 ). Twenty-six survive, fourteen of which were published by WMR in his edition of 1911, pages 263-267 . Paull Franklin Baum published twelve others in his Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library, 56-65 . This previously unpublished sonnet is a nineteenth from the series, which was originally much more extensive.

Textual History: Composition

Two manuscripts survive: an early fair copy in the Tinker collection at Yale, and a manuscript at the Huntington Library which is cancelled with a cross-through. The manuscripts differ in some important respects, not the least of which is a variant in line 3. The Huntington text is a quatorzain whereas the Tinker manuscript, which seems later, is divided into octave and sestet.

Printing History

The sonnet was not published by WMR, perhaps because the only copy he saw the cancelled one at thr Huntington.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 41-1848.raw.xml