I'll mention a planned set of murals illustrating scenes from
Book III of _The Faerie Queene_ for which Edward
Burne-Jones drew some remarkable preliminary
sketches. He is said to have planned for 4
different subjects: 'The Chariot of Love', 'The
Vision of Britomart', 'The Sirens' and a picture
which sounds like it derives from Spenser's
pastoral Book VI: 'a picture of the world --
with Pan and Echo and sylvan gods, and a forest
full of centaurs and a wild background of woods,
mountains and rivers intermixed in his
mind by Italian Renaissance paintings. A group
of drawings for a "Masque of Cupid" were part of
a very great show of his works which came to
the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
These are studies in physical intimidation, fear,
threatened inflictions of pain. To my mind the
psychological-allegorical style and mood of
intense strain, despair (very Bergman as in
the 1952 film 'The Seventh Seal') recall Burne-Jones's
illustrations of medieval love poems, 'The Romaunt
of the Rose' though the pictures for the Spenser
are heavily influenced by Italian idealisation
of heroic bodies, while the ones for earlier poems
show elongated figures (like those found in
Burne-Jones's Arthurian pictures).
I imagine these are probably mentioned in the articles
by Norman Farmer and Richard Frushell cited
by Prof Hamilton. I distinguish them because they
are breath-taking in their nerve, may show the
way discerning readers of the late Victorian
period (one where Freudian ways of
thought are beginning to make inroards), and
are beautiful in themselves. They also curiously
hark back to Carpaccio so show some striking
evidence of a similar way of approaching Spenser
which goes outside an immediate era. The
catalogue published with at the time of the
show contains reproductions: _Edward Burne-
Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer_, published
by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Stephen
Wildman and John Christian, ISBN
0-87099-859-5. I am interested in the history of
book illustrations and illustrations in and of
themselves. They have a lot to tell us about
the way a particular text was perceived in a
given era, and there are eras in which publishers
were prepared to put sufficient money
into the production of these to enable them
to be of high quality because they
helped to sell books.
I suppose I should introduce myself. I posted a tiny
query for a lucid book on Lacan about a week ago,
and here thank the person who answered my
request. I have recognized a few names from Renais-l
and Ficino where I sometimes post. I have a very
old love of Spenser's poetry (it goes back to my
undergraduate days), and have published and still
work on Renaissance poetry as a translator. I
have put onto my website about 90 of Vittoria
Colonna's poems with accompanying translations
(by me); I have the whole set, but have not had
the time to put them all up there. This is a
goal or dream I hope to accomplish eventually.
I am particularly interested in Renaissance sonnet
sequences by women. If anyone wants to know
more about me, there's more than you probably
bargain for if you go to my website:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~emoody. I have a neat
review-essay of a recent book in Italian on women's
letters from the 14th through 18th century on
the part of my site called "Essays on Epistolary
Literature"; I am at this point working on a
book on later 18th century novels which I have
agreed with my publisher to call _Jane Austen
and Bath_ as the first name sells anything and
the second conjures up alluring and pleasant
pictures in readers' minds.
Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody
-----
"She regained the street -- happy in this, that though
much had been forced on her against her will, though
she had in fact heard the whole substance of Jane
Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself."
---Jane Austen, _Emma_
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