Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti at 22 years of Age by William Holman Hunt |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (1828-1882), var en brittisk målare och poet och en av de ledande gestalterna bland prerafaeliterna. Han var bror till Christina Rossetti. Han utbildades vid Royal Academy of Arts i London 1846-1848 och målade för Ford Madox Brown och William Holman Hunt. 1848 bildades konstnärsgruppen prerafaeliterna där han kom att ingå som en av de mest aktiva. Källa: Wikipedia
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Vid 20 års ålder hade han redan gjort ett antal översättningar av italienska poeter och hade komponerat några ursprungliga verser, men han var också mycket in och ut ur konstnärsateljéer och för en kort tid var han, på ett informellt sätt, en elev hos målaren Ford Madox Brown.
Rossetti hade haft en blygsam framgång 1861 med sina publicerade översättningar, och mot slutet av 1860-talet vände han sig till poesin igen. Han började komponera nya dikter och planerade återvinningen av det manuskript med dikter som han lät gräva ned! med sin fru på Highgate-kyrkogården. Källa: Encyclopedia Britannica
Den första dikten handlar om en prostituerad kvinna.
"Found" Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1854 |
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Jenny (two stanzas), by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(from The collected works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Vol. 1, Poems, Prose-tales and literary papers. London : Ellis and Elvey, 1897.)
Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
Whose head upon my knee to-night
Rests for a while, as if grown light
With all our dances and the sound
To which the wild tunes spun you round:
Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen
Of kisses which the blush between
Could hardly make much daintier;
Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair
Is countless gold incomparable:
Fresh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell
Of Love’s exuberant hotbed:—Nay,
Poor flower left torn since yesterday
Until to-morrow leave you bare;
Poor handful of bright spring-water
Flung in the whirlpool’s shrieking face;
Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
Thus with your head upon my knee;—
Whose person or whose purse may be
The lodestar of your reverie?
This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
A change from mine so full of books,
Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
So many captive hours of youth,—
The hours they thieve from day and night
To make one’s cherished work come right,
And leave it wrong for all their theft,
Even as to-night my work has left:
Until I vowed that since my brain
And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
My feet should have some dancing too:—
And thus it was I met with you.
Well, I suppose ’twas hard to part,
For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
You seem too tired to get to bed.
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Mellan 1850 och 1860 arbetade Rossetti i huvudsak i akvarell; teckningarna av hustrun Elizabeth Siddal och det idealiserade porträttet av henne, Beata Beatrix, är också viktiga. Hon och William Morris hustru Jane Morris försåg Rossetti med ett kvinnoideal som går igen i hela hans verk. "Nubila jungfrur" med rådjursögon, lång hals, rak näsa och liten mun med markerad amorbåge, böljande röda lockar, jadegröna ögon och alabastervit hud var Rosettis skönhetsideal. Källa: Wikipedia
Porträtt av Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1869 |
The portrait (four stanzas), by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(from The collected works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Vol. 1, Poems, Prose-tales and literary papers. London : Ellis and Elvey, 1897.)
This is her picture as she was:
It seems a thing to wonder on,
As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone.
I gaze until she seems to stir,—
Until mine eyes almost aver
That now, even now, the sweet lips part
To breathe the words of the sweet heart:—
And yet the earth is over her.
Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray
That makes the prison-depths more rude,—
The drip of water night and day
Giving a tongue to solitude.
Yet only this, of love's whole prize,
Remains; save what in mournful guise
Takes counsel with my soul alone,—
Save what is secret and unknown,
Below the earth, above the skies.
In painting her I shrin'd her face
Mid mystic trees, where light falls in
Hardly at all; a covert place
Where you might think to find a din
Of doubtful talk, and a live flame
Wandering, and many a shape whose name
Not itself knoweth, and old dew,
And your own footsteps meeting you,
And all things going as they came.
A deep dim wood; and there she stands
As in that wood that day: for so
Was the still movement of her hands
And such the pure line's gracious flow.
And passing fair the type must seem,
Unknown the presence and the dream.
'Tis she: though of herself, alas!
Less than her shadow on the grass
Or than her image in the stream.
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