Collected Writings

'My own belief is that I am a poet primarily, and that it is my poetic tendencies that chiefly give value to my pictures.' Now better known as a leading light of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) also produced much original verse which influenced the writing of Swinburne, Wilde and other writers of the 1890, as well as an acclaimed volume of translations from Italian authors, including his namesake Dante Alighieri. Much praised, the sensuality of his poetry attracted much opprobrium. Responding to Keats, Tennyson and Browning, Rossetti was also one of the earliest admirers of Blake. Strongly drawn to supernatural themes, his own poems grapple with the mysteries of human passion and the loss of religious certainty. Varied in form as well as theme, his verse ranges from romantic ballads of betrayal and revenge through intricately wrought love sonnets to boldly erotic odes. There are simple lyrics, dramatic monologues spoken by an Italian outlaw and a London student who has gone home with a whore, historical narratives and several poems written for pictures, painted by Rossetti himself and other artists. Frequently anthologized, Rossetti's literary works have long been unavailable in their collected form. This new edition brings together everything published in his lifetime, including the early pre-Raphaelite tale Hand and Soul, and Rossetti's critical defence of his 'fleshly' poems. It also includes his translation of Dante's Vita Nuova, together with a selection from his English versions of Guido Cavalcanti, which introduced Ezra Pound to the medieval literature which formed the basis of his career. Other Modernist poets such as T.S. Eliot were also reared on Rossetti's works, with their unique blend of intensity, music, verbal colour and archaic utterance.