“The Sea”
“The Sea”
Witnesses
Title
“The Sea”.
Ruskin wrote the title as “The sea”. See System of Title Citation for Works.
Genre
Poem.
Manuscripts
MS III (p. 68), a Red Book devoted primarily to “Harry and Lucy”, Vol. 2. “The Sea” is the eighth poem in “Poetry Discriptive”.
Facsimiles by permission of John Ruskin Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Transcriptions of texts and commentary © David C. Hanson.
Date
1827, after June.
See “Wales”: Date; and Tours of 1826–27: Wales and Scotland, 1827 for the family journey with which the poems in “Poetry Discriptive” are connected.
See also System of Date Citation.
Composition & Publication
Previously unpublished.
Discussion
In the travel narrative in “Harry and Lucy”, Vol. 2, the narrator mentions crossing the sea to get from Wales to Scotland, although it is not clear where this voyage occurred in the Ruskinsʼ actual tour. See Tours of 1826–27: Wales and Scotland, 1827.
See also Poetry Descriptive for how “The Sea” and “The Storm” together form a conclusion to the anthology.