The Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Excerpt from The Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The most adequate mode of prefacing the Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as of most authors, would probably be to offer a broad general view of his writings, and to analyse with some critical precision his relation to other writers, contemporary or otherwise, and the merits and defects of his performances. In this case, as in how few others, one would also have to consider in what degree his mind worked consentaneously or diversely in two several arts - the art of poetry and the art of painting. But the hand of a brother is not the fittest to undertake any work of this scope. My preface will not therefore deal with themes such as these, but will be confined to minor matters, which may nevertheless be relevant also within their limits. And first may come a very brief outline of the few events of an outwardly uneventful life.

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, who, at an early stage of his professional career, modified his name into Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was born on 12th May 1828, at No. 38 Charlotte Street, Portland Place, London. In blood he was three-fourths Italian, and only one-fourth English; being on the father's side wholly Italian (Abruzzese), and on the mother's side half Italian (Tuscan) and half English. His father was Gabriele Rossetti, born in 1783 at Vasto, in the Abruzzi, Adriatic coast, in the then kingdom of Naples.

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