Selected Poems and Translations

For critics like John Ruskin and Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1892) was one of the great creative figures of the day, a painter and a poet of major stature. Yeats and the young Pound regarded him as an exemplary figure of solitary dedication to art and beauty. Rossetti's most original work may have been in preparing the way for the modernists who in turn dethroned him. He called the sonnet 'a moment's monument', and his best short lyrics are instants of compressed emotion cut free of time. In this, as in the suggestiveness of his imagery, he anticipates the French Symbolists. He can also be regarded as the founder of modern verse translation, not only for the freshness of his versions but also for his choice of poets - Villon, Cavalcanti and the young Dante. In this selection Clive Wilmer has made a personal choice, emphasizing the 'pure poetry' of the lyrics at the expense of the more conventionally Victorian monologues and narratives. He has also included a generous selection from the translations, and provided a biographical and critical introduction.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882) was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Clive Wilmer (born 10 February 1945) is a British poet, who has published eight volumes of poetry. He is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, a Bye-Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge. He is also an Honorary Fellow and a Research Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University.