---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: 07 March 2002 00:00 -0500
From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]>
To: Recipients of VICTORIA digests <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: VICTORIA Digest - 5 Mar 2002 to 6 Mar 2002 (#2002-66)
There are 29 messages totalling 999 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Victorian divorce (6)
2. Fred Burnaby (was Blunt/Ouida
3. Bluebeard (7)
4. "A Musical Instrument": Elizabeth Barrett Browning v Anthony Trollope
5. Aesthetic Movement (5)
6. Burns and Chartism (3)
7. "Women and children first!" -- The Birkenhead remembered
8. Bluebeard (don't read this if you're squeamish) (2)
9. Elizabeth Barrett Browning v Anthony Trollope
10. <No subject given>
11. acknowledgement
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:41:53 +0100
From: neil davie <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
Could I draw on Victoria's collective wisdom? I have a student beginning =
a dissertation on divorce in Britain in the Victorian period. This is =
not really my field, so any suggestions as to recommended reading would =
be most welcome!
Thanks.
Neil Davie
Universit=E9 Paris 7, Paris, France ([log in to unmask])
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 04:27:00 EST
From: Judith Flanders <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Fred Burnaby (was Blunt/Ouida
Angela Bryant <[log in to unmask]>
wrote
<My interest was peaked actually after perusing Lytton's biography, which
has only the smallest passing reference to Ouida, and not in relation to
Blunt (but to a Colonel Fred Burnaby). I look forward to seeing the other
sources.
Fred Burnaby was actually Captain Frederick Burnaby, one of those oddities
of Empire. An officer in the Life Guards, he travelled when he could in
what he would have called the Near East, writing for The Times to pay for
it, and producing two books, On Horseback through Asia Minor, and A Ride to
Khiva. He had two claims to posterity. One was that he was was one of the
earliest proponents of a relief expedition to rescue Gordon at Khartoum. (He
proposed a force of 2,000 men driving 3,000 camels making a 'lightning'
dash.) He ultimately joined up with Wolseley and died in a skirmish with the
Mahdi's followers at Abu Klea.
His second claim to fame was his portrait by Tissot, now in the Leeds
City Art Gallery. This is one of Tissot's greatest works -- Burnaby with his
red-striped leg taking up most of the foreground, sits back on a sofa,
smoking.
Brian Thompson has written an entertaining -- and informative -- book on
Gordon and Samuel and Valentine Baker, Imperial Vanities, where Burnaby
appears in more detail.
Best
Judith Flanders
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 06:56:01 -0600
From: Ginger Frost <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
Your student should consult Dr. Gail Savage at St. Mary's
College in Maryland. Dr. Savage is writing a full-scale
study of of divorce in Victorian and early twentieth
-century England.
Regards,
Ginger Frost
Samford University
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 13:13:32 -0000
From: Andrew Mangham <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Bluebeard
Can anyone tell me where the Bluebeard myth originates from and when? In =
particular, how was it best known to the Victorians?
Many Thanks,
Andrew Mangham
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 08:21:51 -0500
From: Maureen Martin <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
There's Barbara Leckie's _Culture and Adultery: The Novel, the Newspaper
and the Law, 1857-1914_, which discusses the print debates about adultery
and divorce following the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857.
-Maureen Martin
On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, neil davie wrote:
> Could I draw on Victoria's collective wisdom? I have a student beginning
a dissertation on divorce in Britain in the Victorian period. This is not
really my field, so any suggestions as to recommended reading would be most
welcome! >
> Thanks.
>
> Neil Davie
> Université Paris 7, Paris, France ([log in to unmask])
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 13:09:44 +0000
From: Mary Ann Tobin <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
I highly recommend the works of Lawrence Stone, whose
_The Road to Divorce_ is very readable, very in-depth
and very comprehensive and entertaining. _TRD_ covers
marriage and divorce law from the 14th century to early
20th century. Stone's other works include case studies
of infamous and not-so-infamous, but representative,
divorce proceedings from the 16th through the 19th
centuries in Britain.
She may need to explain to librarians or book sellers
that _TRD_ is not a self-help book. I've received many
concerned glances from good friends who have seen the
book on my shelf.
M A Tobin
--
s/ Mary Ann Tobin
Ph.D. Candidate
Duquesne University
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 08:46:10 -0600
From: Ellen Moody <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: "A Musical Instrument": Elizabeth Barrett Browning v Anthony
Trollope
Margot Louis asks about Trollope's refutation of what he took
to be the "lesson" or interpretation many a reader would take
away from Barrett Browning's poem.
I was talking from memory, but last night (prompted by a query
offlist) I discovered I was right about the interaction of the
Trollope brothers and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The evidence is
in Thomas Trollope's _What I Remember_ where he recounts a tiny
brouhaha that occurred between Elizabeth and Anthony at
long range.
I own only the one volume abridgement of Thomas Trollope's _
What I remember_ but the incident is (happily) reprinted
there. The documents consist of a letter Anthony wrote to Thomas
in which he criticizes her ideas about a poet's sacrifice and necessary
retreat from society; what happened was Thomas gave this letter to
Isa Blagden, and Isa gave it to Elizabeth Browning; at this Elizabeth
wrote to Isa but she included a lengthy paragraph of refutation which she
told Isa to send onto Anthony because he is "clearly wrong".
What's interesting is how bothered Elizabeth is about
Anthony's reading of her poem. (First names are useful
here as we have another Trollope, Thomas, and another
Browning, Robert.) Anthony suggests that what readers would come
away with is a "cowardly morality". From his use of the poem
in _Phineas Redux_ what he means by that is the idea that a
poet is necessarily different, and necessary must be at least
somewhat alienated and "use his inner life up to the point
of harrowing" is one which encourages depression in the intelligent
person who is scapegoated by society for being different in
some way, or because it suits the interests of whoever is
involved in a set of circumstances at a given point in time to
so scapegoat the person. In brief and in very general
or non-nuanced terms, Phineas is in effect scapegoated
in _Redux_; he is accused of murder, pursued and harassed
and evidence mounted up against him and the charge is
almost made to stick because it suits the interests and
passions of several powerful people(people with connections
or access to media and money) so to accuse him, people
who had before blackened him and the circumstantial evidence
allows them to do this. After Phineas is acquitted, he still feels
shattered, scapegoated and profoundly disillusioned because
his friends did not stand by him absolutely: they did not
simply believing he could not do what he was accused of.
The result is he feel shamed and alienated. It may be that
Trollope consciously criticizes Phineas for not returning to society,
and adjusting himself to the world as it is, for not seeing he is
part of it, but this aspect of the text is much muted. Instead
we get a portrait of a depression which shows real sympathy
and understanding of a withdrawn alienated stance and sheds
light on aspects of Trollope's own hidden temperament.
See Thomas Trollope, _What I Remember_, H. Van Thal (London:
Kimber, 1973), pp. 176-79. The full letter by Anthony with a
reference to _Phineas Redux_ is reprinted in N. John Hall,
_AT's Letters_, 2 vols (Stanford Univ Press, 1983), Vol 1, p.
115. The full letter by Anthony with a reference to _Phineas
Redux_ is reprinted in N. John Hall, _AT's Letters_, 2 vols
(Stanford Univ Press, 1983), Vol 1, p. 115. In a footnote
in this edition, Hall tells us that Trollope quoted the concluding
lines of Barrett Browning's "A Musical Instrument" twice in
_Phineas Redux_ (Chapter 67).
Although I didn't put the following mistake into my original
posting I'll bring it up here. I seem to have thought that
Elizabeth learned about Trollope's interpretation and
criticism of her poem through reading _Phineas Redux_
or another of his novels. There is another one where he
again alludes to her poem and uses it in the same way;
I can't remember which one it is. Well she didn't. It was
Thomas who revealed Anthony's thoughts to Elizabeth.
This little incident has not been paid much attention to in
the scholarship. What interests me is how Barrett Browning's
poem bothered Anthony Trollope too. That is, he feels this
need to refute it -- and more than once. I see in this an
instance of man protesting too much. I am also fascinated
by the poem; I like it. Unlike Anthony I agree with Elizabeth
Browning and am able read the poem not only the way she
intended me to, but extrapolate out from this view of the artist
v society further to see an interestingly subversive views based
on it.
Margaret Atwood's throw-away assertion that Barrett
Browning was anorexic is also interesting. I have not
read much criticism of Barrett Browning and much of
what I have read was written before the last five years
or so. If we see Barrett Browning as anorexic, that
throws a whole other light on her years on the couch.
These years would then not be primarily the
result of her father's tyranny, but something which
came out of her inner nature and character. I understand
a good deal about anorexia and among other things
it is a retreat from life, a fear of sexuality, a keeping
it at bay. There's also the common sense reality
that by so doing, you give yourself lots of time to
read and study and need not socialize beyond what
you really want. Of course you need to eat enough
not really to starve to death. All things in moderation
as people used to say (ironic joke alert, ironic joke
alert).
Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:07:07 EST
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Aesthetic Movement
Thanks to all for the answers to my question on the beginning of the
Aesthetic Movement. It was quite helpful. Though more technical than I
desired, the posts did straighten out some errant thoughts I had.
But in order to answer the original question---technicalities aside---I
guess I should ask a different question. When did the public begin to see
this as a separate movement by name? The answer came on the list that it
was probably the Ruskin/Whistler trial.
Perhaps another measuring stick would be the first Punch Cartoon or article
to satirize the movement. Does anyone know?
Thanks again,
Matt Demakos
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:19:03 -0500
From: Jonathan Loesberg <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Movement
I guess if the question is when did the outside world identify something
like a cultural movement, I think an answer has also appeared in prior
posts: Mallock's The New Republic, first published in 1876, but circulated
in manuscript around Oxford for some years before. But I don't wish to
cease being difficult here. Mallock's themes were surely predicted by
Frederic Harrison's response to the first chapters of Culture and Anarchy
published in Westminster Review. And Tennyson was also effectively accused
of aestheticism. Something surely did happen in the 1880s and 1890s. But I
don't really think one can measure its beginning unless one goes back to
the 18th century articulation of aesthetic theory.
Jonathan Loesberg
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:28:00 -0600
From: "Hastings, Waller" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Bluebeard
The story of Bluebeard is one of Perrault's fairy tales, published
in French in 1697 and translated to English as early as 1729. However,
there is also a folktale from the English tradition, "Mr. Fox," which is
related to "Bluebeard" - it was collected by Joseph Jacobs in the late 19th
century but his notes trace it to a 1790 publication and there is an
allusion to the Mr. Fox tale in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The
Grimms also have a version of the tale, called "The Robber Bridegroom."
Here, from my teaching notes:
It has been suggested that the story has a historical basis, and has been
linked to the figure of one Gilles de Rais (1404-40), a French contemporary
of Joan of Arc who was accused of heresy and multiple murder (supposedly, he
killed 140 people) leading to his execution. However, the Opies note that
he had only one wife, who survived him, that his beard was red not blue, and
that, like Jeffrey Daumer, his victims were young boys, not women. They
offer another candidate: Comorre the Cursed (ca. 500), about whom a legend
similar to the Bluebeard tale was told. The Perrault story was linked to
the Comorre legend (from Brittany) soon after Perrault's death.
It would appear, then, that the Victorians could have had this story from a
multitude of sources: their own folk tradition, or the written versions of
Perrault or the Grimms, or (for antiquarians like Browning) a number of
original sources of cognate stories.
waller hastings
northern state university
aberdeen, sd 57401
[log in to unmask]
"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be
mistaken." - Oliver Cromwell, to his enemies
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 10:49:52 -0500
From: Glenn Everett <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Movement
I will make the common apology (which happens to be true) that my notes are
boxed up and unavailable. Then:
Isn't this a Classical distinction, going back to someone like Horace?
That the best art is intended to delight and instruct, but there is also
art which is created for its own sake? And isn't that the locus classicus
of "l'art pour l'art"?
So the latish-Victorian notion that recent artists have chosen to come down
on the side of "l'art pour l'art" rather than on the Ruskin side, and
rather than trying to strike a balance between the two ideals (i.e.,
between Hebrew and Hellene) is what allows critics, retroactively, to
constitute the Aesthetic Movement.
Glenn Everett
Stonehill College
Easton, MA 02357
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 15:56:29 -0000
From: Paul Barlow <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Bluebeard
Further to this: de Rais appears in Shaw's 'St. Joan', in which he
isreferred to as 'Bluebeard', so I think the De Rais story was strongly
associated with the Bluebeard tale by this time. The character of Duke
Bluebeard in Bartok's opera also seems to be based - very loosely - on De
Rais. But when De Rais took over from Comorre as the supposed historical
source, I don't know.
Paul Barlow
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 11:48:36 -0500
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bluebeard
> Can anyone tell me where the Bluebeard myth originates from and when? In
particular, how was it best known to the Victorians?
Many Thanks,
Andrew Mangham
[log in to unmask]<
One early popular manifestation was that of Gilles de Rais, who was a
follower of Joan of Arc in the fifteenth century and who was, if I
recall, executed for the extent of his perversions -- but I'll have to
do more definite research tonight, while not at work, to be sure of
this.
Maria
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:09:28 -0500
From: Angela Bryant <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Bluebeard
One of the early clues to readers about what may be hiding in Rochester's
attic is a brief allusion to Bluebeard in Jane Eyre:
"Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint of
groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the
narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led,
separating the front and back rooms of the third story: narrow, low, and
dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two
rows of small black doors all shut, like a cooridor in some Bluebeard's
castle."
Then we first hear Bertha's laugh. A chilling moment!
Angela Bryant
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:11:56 -0500
From: Angela Bryant <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
> A.J. Hammerton's _Cruelty & Companionship_ would be another good source
for your student.
Angela Bryant
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:38:26 -0500
From: Holly Forsythe <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Bluebeard
When she was a student at U of Toronto, Casie Hermansson completed a
doctoral thesis on various manifestations of the Bluebeard story which
may be useful. The DIA listing should be some time between 1996-99. If
memory serves, she discussed the Brontes at some length, as well as
Margaret Atwood and Jane Campion's film _The Piano_.
Hope this helps,
Holly Forsythe, doctoral student, University of Toronto
<[log in to unmask]>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:47:09 -0500
From: Herbert Tucker <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Movement
Professor Loesberg's own work on aestheticism should certainly be consulted
by the serious student. I'd also recommend a book from our Victorian
series here at Virginia, Linda Dowling's *The Vulgarization of Art*.
At 09:19 AM 3/6/02 -0500, you wrote:
>I guess if the question is when did the outside world identify something
>like a cultural movement, I think an answer has also appeared in prior
>posts: Mallock's The New Republic, first published in 1876, but circulated
>in manuscript around Oxford for some years before. But I don't wish to
>cease being difficult here. Mallock's themes were surely predicted by
>Frederic Harrison's response to the first chapters of Culture and Anarchy
>published in Westminster Review. And Tennyson was also effectively accused
>of aestheticism. Something surely did happen in the 1880s and 1890s. But I
>don't really think one can measure its beginning unless one goes back to
>the 18th century articulation of aesthetic theory.
>
>Jonathan Loesberg
Herbert Tucker
Department of English
219 Bryan Hall
University of Virginia 22904-4121
[log in to unmask]
434 / 924-6677
FAX: 434 / 924-1478
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:48:38 -0500
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bluebeard
One aspect of the Bluebeard story, that of the heroine's curiosity
landing her in trouble, might be traced to Pandora, and, further back
than that, to Eve. An ancient variation of the wife disobeying her
husband to detriment is Psyche; for a husband disobeying his wife
there's Melusine. The Melusine is said to have been the ancestress
of the Plantagenets. There's also a folk tale, though I think it's
Eastern European, about a boy whose mother warns him not to open the
door while she is out. The boy does, of course, and is abducted by
a witch, though he's saved in a manner I don't recall.
Maria
[log in to unmask]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 13:35:00 -0200
From: Gail Savage <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
Conducting a survey of the published literature on divorce presents
challenges because divorce is of interest to historians, legal scholars and
literary scholars. I have been working on this subject for some time, and
the list I have included here, although long, is by no means complete, in
particular, it does not include the most recent publishing on the subject.
For divorce in England prior to the 1857 Divorce act see: Gerhard O. W.
Mueller, "Inquiry into the State of a Divorceless Society: Domestic
Relations Law and Morals in England from 1660 to 1857," University of
Pittsburgh Law Review 18, 3 (Spring 1957): 545-578; Sybil Wolfram, "Divorce
in England 1700-1857," Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 5 (1985): 155-186 and
S. Anderson, "Legislative Divorce-Law for the Aristocracy?" in Law, Economy
and Society, 1750-1914: Essays in History of English Law (eds.) G. Rubin and
David Sugarman, (Professional Books Limited, 1984), pp. 412-43. For
separations, see Susan Staves, Married Women's Separate Property in England,
1660-1833 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), and for wife sales
see Samuel Pyeatt Menefree, Wives for Sale: An Ethnographic Study of British
Popular Divorce (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981). Discussions of the
passage of the Divorce Act include Margaret K. Woodhouse, "The Marriage and
Divorce Bill of 1857," American Journal of Legal History 3 (1959): 260-75;
Mary Lyndon Shanley, " 'One Must Ride Behind': Married women's Rights and
the Divorce Act of 1857," Victorian Studies 25 (Spring 1982): 355-76;
Dorothy Stetson, A Woman's Issue: The Politics of Family Law Reform in
England (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982), 28-50; Lee Holcombe, Wives and
Property: Reform of the Married Women's Property Law in Nineteenth-Century
England (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1983), 88-110;
and Allen Hortsman, Victorian Divorce (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985),
46-84. In addition, Keith Thomas, in his classic analysis, "The Double
Standard," Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (April 1959): 195-216 draws
upon the divorce debates as an important source. Shanley and Mary Poovey
have each placed their analyses of the divorce debates in a larger context.
See Mary Lyndon Shanley, Feminism, Marriage and the Law in Victorian
England, 1850-1895 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989): and Mary
Poovey, Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian
England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Lawrence Stone has
provided an extremely lucid narrative of the passage of the 1857 Divorce Act
in Road to Divorce: England 1530-1987 (Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press,
1990), 368-82. O. R. McGregor's Divorce in England (1957) is still useful,
and Hammerton's Cruelty and Companionship makes wonderful use of divorce
cases in his analysis of marital cruelty. Ann Holmes has a dissertation
and some published essays on this subject, and there is a lot of essay
literature on particular divorce cases and the literary representation of
divorce in journals and essay collections. Leah Leneham was written a book
and several articles on Scottish divorce.
Gail Savage
St. Mary's College of Maryland
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: neil davie <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 6:41 AM
Subject: Re: Victorian divorce
Could I draw on Victoria's collective wisdom? I have a student beginning a
dissertation on divorce in Britain in the Victorian period. This is not
really my field, so any suggestions as to recommended reading would be most
welcome!
Thanks.
Neil Davie
Université Paris 7, Paris, France ([log in to unmask])
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:40:57 -0600
From: Weltman Sharon <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Movement
For a succinct and provocative treatment of the very complicated
relationship between Ruskin and the Aesthetic Movement, see Nicholas
Shrimpton's essay "Ruskin and the Aesthetes" in _Ruskin and the Dawn of
the Modern_, ed. Dinah Birch (Oxford 1999).
As to early examples of critical recognition of aestheticism (if not
exactly an origin), Shrimpton points to Coleridge, also Leigh Hunt's
review of Keats's _Poems_ in 1817 as "poetry for its own sake." He shows
Ruskin by 1846 working hard to distance himself from those who priviledge
Aesthesis over Theoria.
Sharon Aronofsky Weltman
Associate Professor of English
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5001
[log in to unmask]
On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Herbert Tucker wrote:
> Professor Loesberg's own work on aestheticism should certainly be
consulted > by the serious student. I'd also recommend a book from our
Victorian > series here at Virginia, Linda Dowling's *The Vulgarization of
Art*. >
> At 09:19 AM 3/6/02 -0500, you wrote:
> >I guess if the question is when did the outside world identify something
> >like a cultural movement, I think an answer has also appeared in prior
> >posts: Mallock's The New Republic, first published in 1876, but
circulated > >in manuscript around Oxford for some years before. But I
don't wish to > >cease being difficult here. Mallock's themes were surely
predicted by > >Frederic Harrison's response to the first chapters of
Culture and Anarchy > >published in Westminster Review. And Tennyson was
also effectively accused > >of aestheticism. Something surely did happen in
the 1880s and 1890s. But I > >don't really think one can measure its
beginning unless one goes back to > >the 18th century articulation of
aesthetic theory.
> >
> >Jonathan Loesberg
>
>
>
>
>
> Herbert Tucker
> Department of English
> 219 Bryan Hall
> University of Virginia 22904-4121
> [log in to unmask]
> 434 / 924-6677
> FAX: 434 / 924-1478
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 17:31:17 -0000
From: Vickers Roy <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Burns and Chartism
Hello everyone,
My eye was recently caught by an image of Flaxman's memorial sculpture of
Robert Burns which stands in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. In a
relief panel on the base of the sculpture, a female figure stands behind a
seated Burns and places a laurel wreath (symbolising the spirit of poetry)
on the head of the late poet. It reminded me of a passage in a Chartist poem
where a similar ideal figure called 'Freedom' is in the process of making a
similar wreath, ready for when the franchise and its benefits would be
enjoyed. It's a comment on the role of poetry in that coming victory, but is
anyone aware of other visual representations of poets similar to the Burns
memorial, or any similar allusions in poetry up to the mid 1840s?
Many thanks,
Roy Vickers, Liverpool John Moores University
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:51:52 -0800
From: Sidney Allinson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: "Women and children first!" -- The Birkenhead remembered
>Relatives remember heroes of shipwreck
>By Alec Russell at Danger Point
>(Filed: 27/02/2002)
>
>To the accompaniment of the bagpipes and in a brisk Cape wind, a short and
>poignant service was held yesterday [in South Africa] to mark the 150th
>anniversary of the wreck of the troopship "Birkenhead", one of the epic
>maritime dramas of British military history.
>
>Nearly 450 officers and men were drowned or eaten by sharks in the early
>hours of Feb 26, 1852 when Her Majesty's Transport "Birkenhead" hit an
>uncharted rock a little more than a mile off the Cape [of Good Hope] coast.
>
>Since then, the Birkenhead has resounded as a symbol of outstanding bravery
>and discipline. Hundreds of soldiers stood fast on deck as the ship went
>down, obeying orders not to swim to, and potentially swamp, the three
>overcrowded boats that carried the women and children.
>
>The soldiers' devotion to duty confirmed the procedure of "women and
>children first", later immortalised by Rudyard Kipling as the "Birkenhead
>Drill".
>
>Yesterday's service was at the foot of the lighthouse on Danger Point,
>overlooking the Birkenhead rock, which lies just below the surface.
>Yesterday it could be pinpointed occasionally by the surf breaking over it.
>
>The ship, which sank barely 20 minutes after striking the rock, was on its
>way to the Eastern Cape with reinforcements to fight in the 8th Frontier
>War, or Caffer War as it was then known. It was doomed not by a storm but
by >the very calmness of the sea, which meant that there was no surf to
alert >the crew to the rock's presence.
>
>Among yesterday's congregation was Sarah Drury, the great-granddaughter of
>Captain Robert Salmond, who went down with his ship, and James Russell,
>whose great uncle, Alexander, a 19-year-old ensign in the 74th Highlanders,
>gave up his place in a boat for a man struggling in the sea. He was then
>taken by a great white shark.
>
>There were eight lifeboats aboard but only three could be launched as the
>ship foundered. Of the estimated 638 people on board, only about 80 found
>room in the boats, but all the women and children were saved.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 14:28:17 -0500
From: Herbert Tucker <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Burns and Chartism
Try Keats: "On Receiving a Laurel Wreath from Leigh Hunt," "On Some Ladies
Who Saw Me Crowned," and then the palinode at the end of the "Ode on
Indolence".
Or Tennyson, *In Memoriam* lyric 69
Or book 2 of EBB, *Aurora Leigh*
There are surely many other 19th-cy instances of the trope --
At 05:31 PM 3/6/02 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
>My eye was recently caught by an image of Flaxman's memorial sculpture of
>Robert Burns which stands in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. In
a >relief panel on the base of the sculpture, a female figure stands behind
a >seated Burns and places a laurel wreath (symbolising the spirit of
poetry) >on the head of the late poet. It reminded me of a passage in a
Chartist poem >where a similar ideal figure called 'Freedom' is in the
process of making a >similar wreath, ready for when the franchise and its
benefits would be >enjoyed. It's a comment on the role of poetry in that
coming victory, but is >anyone aware of other visual representations of
poets similar to the Burns >memorial, or any similar allusions in poetry up
to the mid 1840s? >
>Many thanks,
>
>Roy Vickers, Liverpool John Moores University
Herbert Tucker
Department of English
219 Bryan Hall
University of Virginia 22904-4121
[log in to unmask]
434 / 924-6677
FAX: 434 / 924-1478
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 20:05:36 -0000
From: Michel Faber <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Bluebeard (don't read this if you're squeamish)
Several people have suggested Gilles de Rais [presumably the
historical Gilles de Rais, not G.B.Shaw's free reinvention of him in
Saint Joan] as the original Bluebeard.
I can't see it myself, as the essence of the Bluebeard story is sexual
-- the serial marriages, the jealousy, the phallic key to the forbidden
enclaves, etc. By contrast, Gilles de Rais brutalised and murdered
children, indulging in the sort of entrail-flinging savagery that we
associate with extreme states of psychosis. He abducted choirboys
and lured young beggars into his various residences. There is one
account of him killing an adult pregnant woman but this seems to
have been in order to attempt rape of her unborn foetus.
There seems little similarity between this ravening ogre, who was so
notorious in his day that villages were said to be deserted when he
rode near, and the Bluebeard myth of a charismatic, Rochester-like
lover whose danger is sufficiently secret for each new wife to be
starry-eyed and unsuspecting.
Obviously if you're determined to follow a trail of similarities
backwards through the centuries you can trace some sort of pre-
echo of the Bluebeard story into antiquity -- to Beowulf, The Bible,
Greek myth, and so on. This is undoubtedly interesting for
comparative purposes, but I can't help thinking that when taken too
far it dilutes the essence of Bluebeard into a generic serial killer
substance.
Best wishes,
Michel Faber
[log in to unmask]
PS: For those who may be shaking their heads at the depravity of
the human race, it may be some comfort to know that Gilles de Rais,
far from being a cheerful Hannibal Lecter-style sadist, suffered
great wretchedness. Earlier in his career, he had been a highly
respected statesman, illuminator and binder of books and a writer of
devout morality plays. His periods of murderous activity were
punctuated with episodes of grieving penitence and terrible
hallucinations. Only the harshest of judges would quarrel with a
diagnosis of desperate mental illness.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 16:55:58 -0500
From: David Latane <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Burns and Chartism
Vickers Roy wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
>My eye was recently caught by an image of Flaxman's memorial sculpture of
>Robert Burns which stands in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland. In
a >relief panel on the base of the sculpture, a female figure stands behind
a >seated Burns and places a laurel wreath (symbolising the spirit of
poetry) >on the head of the late poet. It reminded me of a passage in a
Chartist poem >where a similar ideal figure called 'Freedom' is in the
process of making a >similar wreath, ready for when the franchise and its
benefits would be >enjoyed. It's a comment on the role of poetry in that
coming victory, but is >anyone aware of other visual representations of
poets similar to the Burns >memorial, or any similar allusions in poetry up
to the mid 1840s? >
>Many thanks,
>
>Roy Vickers, Liverpool John Moores University
>
I think this iconography is fairly standard, but a good place to see a
lot of pictures all at once is Piper, David.
_The Image of the Poet: British Poets and Their Portraits_. Oxford UP, 1982
David Latane
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 15:57:47 EST
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bluebeard (don't read this if you're squeamish)
In a message dated 06/03/2002 20:08:17 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> Several people have suggested Gilles de Rais [presumably the
> historical Gilles de Rais, not G.B.Shaw's free reinvention of him in
> Saint Joan] as the original Bluebeard.
>
One of the most interesting things about Rais was his volte face in terms of
his entire identity. He was, it seems, the genuine protector of St Joan and
all-around good Godly guy, and then became, with no warning detectable to
any contemporary commentator, the brutal, child-killing, devil-invoking
figure he has been depicted as (by Huysmans et al). Retiring to the country
estate seemed to have a bad effect on him. As did hanging out with
Rosicrucians. His efforts to invoke Satan seem to have been grotesquely
comical. But since we have none of his words, only commentators and the
court transcripts, what really happened and why in his chateaux is a little
questionable.
So Shaw wasn't wrong. Maybe.
Chris White
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 14:43:41 -0500
From: "Jan R. Reber" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Elizabeth Barrett Browning v Anthony Trollope
Mrs. Moody wrote, "Anthony suggests that what readers would come away
with is a "cowardly morality".
Reading this sentence caused me to go back to Trollope's letter.
I did not recall either Trollope or Browning using such a phrase in
connection with Trollope's response to Browning's poem "Pan." In fact,
Trollope never used the phrase "cowardly morality" nor, I think, did he
judge Browning's poem in quite that way. Nor did Browning characterize
Trollope's response to her poem as including a criticism of "cowardly
morality."* Browning quotes the phrase "cowardly morality" as appearing
in a communication from an unnamed third party who sent Browning a
separate response to "Pan," a response that opened with the line, "You
are a great teacher of truth," and which Browning mocked for its
combination of "earnest... liking" and criticism. (see Thomas Trollope,
_What I Remember_, pp. 394 - 397) Thus, Mrs. Moody's statement that
"Anthony suggests that what readers would come away with is a 'cowardly
morality'" must be her interpretation of Trollope, and her use of
quotations here is perhaps inadvertently misleading.
There are two further source related errors in Mrs. Moody's
posting. First, Mrs. Moody is incorrect to suggest that Browning
"included a lengthy paragraph of refutation which she told Isa to send
onto Anthony...." Thomas clearly states twice that Browning incorrectly
assumed that the Trollope who was the source of the criticism was
Thomas, not Anthony, and Browning asked only that Isa "tell Mr. Trollope
he is wrong nevertheless...," and here Thomas inserts the following
"[here it certainly seems that she supposed the criticism to be mine]."
Browning says that she is "sorely tempted" to send "Mr. Trollope" a
letter, but she apparently decided not to do so.
Mrs. Moody is also incorrect to state that Anthony Trollope's
"full letter" criticizing Browning is included in Hall's edition of
Trollope's letters. Apparently Trollope's "full letter" is not available
anywhere. Hall (and Booth, in his edition of Trollope's letters) reprint
the text from Thomas Trollope's _What I Remember_. (Both Booth and Hall
clearly source the text of the letter to _What I Remember_.) Thomas says
that Anthony's letter about Browning "included "some verbal criticism
which need not be transcribed," and that additional criticism is not
printed anywhere as far as I know.
Thomas Trollope concludes his discussion of the "Pan"
controversy with the judgment, "It may seem that this is a foolish
making of a mountain out of a molehill, but she would not have felt it
to be so." I agree. Thomas characterizes Browning in lofty, idealistic
terms: "She had so high a conception of the poet's office and
responsibilities that nothing would have induced her to play at
believing, for literary purposes, any position, or fancy, or imagination
which she did not in her heart of hearts accept."
In terms of Browning's views of an artist's sacrifices, her
letter to Isa in response to the criticism from Trollope and from the
unnamed third party refers to "Aurora Leigh" as another expression of
her views: "There is an inward reflection, and refraction of the heats
of life...doubling pains and pleasures, doubling therefore, the motives
(passions) of life. I have said something of this in A.L." In 1880,
twenty years after the "Pan" remarks, Trollope wrote to Harry Trollope,
"Aurora Leigh is certainly a very fine poem, but did not please me when
I last read it as when I first encountered it 20 years ago. It seemed to
be less real, and more forced."
* Thomas was well acquainted with Browning, and Browning had read
Anthony's novels and had expressed regard for some of them, calling, for
instance, _Framley Parsonage_ "perfect."
~~ Jan R. Reber [log in to unmask] ~~
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:48:55 -0800
From: David Toise <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: <No subject given>
I'm interested in nineteenth-century English
conceptions about sexuality in Ireland. In what ways
were the Irish constructed by the English as
sexualized subjects, and in particular, how did this
apply to Irish men? If anyone has suggestions as to
articles or books that might address this question
historically and/or literarily, please let me know.
thanks in advance,
David Toise
[log in to unmask]
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 20:52:41 -0500
From: "Nora K. Hoover" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: acknowledgement
Many thanks to Sheldon Goldfarb, Prof. M. Van Wyk Smith, D. C. Rose, =
Richard Fulton, Sally Mitchell, and Chris Willis for their responses to =
my query on female war correspondents in 1868. Unfortunately, I've been =
unable to locate any for that period =20
Nora Hoover
------------------------------
End of VICTORIA Digest - 5 Mar 2002 to 6 Mar 2002 (#2002-66)
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