DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61290#0317
QUALITIES OF DICTION 265
—that is to say, the ballad form ; and chose the
sonnet—the most remote, chastened, and exclusive
vehicle—for the meditative, and yet sensuous, self-
delineative love-poetry.
These broad generalizations, however, cannot
be closely pressed upon the entire sequence of
Rossetti’s poems. The exigencies of the English
language alone elude their literal application. They
will rather serve to illustrate the duality of his en-
dowments, and the singular power of his genius
both to conserve and specialize the characteristics
of his Italian heritage, and also to waive them in
the Saxon mode as utterly as though the latter
were more native to his tongue.
Nor does such a superficial distinction affect the
spiritual qualities which pervade Rossetti’s poetry
as a whole. F rom first to last, in dramatic
description or narrative, in sonnet-argument or
meditative questioning, his verse remains full-
charged with the very essence of romance. As a
poet, he is neither less nor more Pre-Raphaelite
than as a painter. The vivid and intense sim-
plicity of his Saxon diction, the verbal lightnings
of his ballad-style, seem to correspond with the
tone and method of his water-colour painting,
and the more laboured splendour of the sonnets
with the properties of his work in oils. Nor is it
difficult to detect an analogy between that stage
of his painting in which the pristine lucidity of
—that is to say, the ballad form ; and chose the
sonnet—the most remote, chastened, and exclusive
vehicle—for the meditative, and yet sensuous, self-
delineative love-poetry.
These broad generalizations, however, cannot
be closely pressed upon the entire sequence of
Rossetti’s poems. The exigencies of the English
language alone elude their literal application. They
will rather serve to illustrate the duality of his en-
dowments, and the singular power of his genius
both to conserve and specialize the characteristics
of his Italian heritage, and also to waive them in
the Saxon mode as utterly as though the latter
were more native to his tongue.
Nor does such a superficial distinction affect the
spiritual qualities which pervade Rossetti’s poetry
as a whole. F rom first to last, in dramatic
description or narrative, in sonnet-argument or
meditative questioning, his verse remains full-
charged with the very essence of romance. As a
poet, he is neither less nor more Pre-Raphaelite
than as a painter. The vivid and intense sim-
plicity of his Saxon diction, the verbal lightnings
of his ballad-style, seem to correspond with the
tone and method of his water-colour painting,
and the more laboured splendour of the sonnets
with the properties of his work in oils. Nor is it
difficult to detect an analogy between that stage
of his painting in which the pristine lucidity of