LVII Notes on the Stanza of Rossetti's “The Blessed Damozel”

Abstract

Students of Rossetti have felt a certain amount of curiosity about the origin of the stanza of “The Blessed Damozel.” The stanza itself is a matter of no great importance, but its study brings up two rather interesting points: (1) it throws some light on the development of one poet's feeling for verse; (2) it suggests the limitations of our ordinary metrical terminology. Described in conventional terms of accents, feet, and rhyme scheme, Rossetti's stanza is the stanza of “The Village Blacksmith” (which has a gratuitous rhyme in stanza 1, line 3), “The Slave's Dream,” and “The Music Grinders.” Yet, so far as I know, no critic has suggested the influence of Longfellow or Holmes, although the three American poems were published respectively in 1839, 1842, and 1836, and “The Blessed Damozel” in 1850. Nor do I think that, quite apart from the subject matter, any critic could mistake a stanza of “The Blessed Damozel” for the work of either Longfellow or Holmes. Waller, rejecting an Italian original suggested by Mégroz, mentions the six-line stanzas of “The Ancient Mariner,” but doesn't seem to think highly of his own suggestion.