I'll just add a quick reminscence of my own to this already long message: when
I was a junior at Radcliffe (as we called it then) and Paul Alpers was my
tutor (but in 18th c. novel, not Spenser) I was encouraged--maybe by Paul--to
go to a lecture by Rosamond Tuve, who was visiting. I was utterly fascinated
by what she had to say about not reading the Renaissance in what I would now
call teleological terms but I was also fascinated by her hair. Messy, yes, but
not unadorned. She picked up a pencil, didn't really need it except as a prop,
and stuck it in her hair. A few minutes later she did the same with another
pencil. Then she turned to the blackboard and I saw that there was a third
pencil already there. I can't say she became my role model at that moment but
I was blown away by both her brilliance and her willingness to look like the
White Queen while maintaining her poise and authority. I never met her; I can
never forget her. Anne Prescott.
>===== Original Message From Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
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>Thanks for the anecdote, John. I was introduced to her by Kemp Malone
>(anybody remember him?) at a Johns Hopkins cash-bar cocktail party at MLA.
>We were all on all fours. The reason is, Tuve didn't have a purse but she
>had some coins secreted somewhere on her person, but when she reached down
>her bodice to get some to buy herself a drink, one of them fell through
>onto the floor. Don't know if we ever found it; expect Kemp Malone like the
>southern gentleman he was bought her a drink so we all could stand up.
>Putting his arm around what he could reach of her waist (he was rather
>short and she was 6 feet tall), he said "Ros is the brightest star in my
>crown."
>At 04:00 AM 1/2/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>>Carol's bringing together of Frances Yates and Rosamond Tuve recalls a story
>>from the seminar gossip during my first year of graduate study, when
Professor
>>Tuve was visiting at Princeton: she was both an exciting and an excitable
>>presence, given to wonderful arias full of digressions. As I recall the
story
>>(I wasn't there, but I think Tom was), in the midst of one associative leap,
>>her eyes gleaming, hair in disarray, someone brought in the name of Frances
>>Yates; she stopped short and exclaimed, 'Frances Yates! Now THERE'S a
strange
>>woman!'
>>
>>How I wish I had sought out more time with either or both of them. The new
>>series will be a great service to us all.
>>
>>Cheers, Jon Quitslund
>> > Marvelous idea, marvelous title. I could do one if I can have next summer
>> > (2003) to do it, I'm overcommitted until then. I'd like to write up one
of
>> > my role models: Rosamund Tuve, Kathleen Williams, or Frances Yates.
Having
>> > edited Ficino's De Vita and thus become conversant with her Giordano
Bruno
>> > and the Hermetic Tradition, I can lay claim to some expertise on Dame
>> > Frances, whereas Tom Roche knows more than I do about Ros Tuve.
>> > At 09:10 AM 1/1/03 -0500, you wrote:
>> > >Dear Spenserians and Sidneians,
>> > >Please write to me with proposals for brief pieces you'd like to
>> > >contribute for the new series in *The Spenser Review* described here.
>> > >(Thanks to Roland Greene for discovering the right name of the series;
>> > >thanks to everyone whose roll-calls of women scholars convinced me even
>> > >more than I was that we need to do this series.)
>> > >Many thanks,
>> > >Terry
>> > >
>> > >De Mulieribus claris
>> > >
>> > >The Spenser Review announces a new series, of short pieces remembering
the
>> > >careers of women scholars of medieval and Renaissance literature from
the
>> > >early days of the profession until 1975: until postmodernism and
>> > >second-wave feminism changed the face of literary scholarship. In
keeping
>> > >with the Review's mission of documenting and preserving scholarship and
>> > >its local, specific contexts, we invite pieces written as memoir;
analyses
>> > >of individual women's careers and the nature of their structural roles
in
>> > >the profession and the institution; surveys of a woman scholar's work;
>> > >investigations of specific events like the five articles by women in a
>> > >1926 PMLA or the University of Virginia dissertation from the 1930s on
>> > >16th and 17th-century women writers. The work and careers of many
>> > >remarkable women call for intelligent documentation and analysis, among
>> > >them Marjorie Hope Allen, Josephine Waters Bennett, Muriel Bradbrook,
Lily
>> > >Bess Campbell, Rosalie Colie, Madeleine Doran, Enid Ellis-Fermor, Helen
>> > >Gardner, Isabel MacCaffrey, Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Rosemond Tuve, Joan
>> > >Webber, Enid Welsford, Helen C. White, Kathleen Williams, Lilian
>> > >Winstanley, Frances Yates. Note that this series isn't limited to women
>> > >scholars who worked on Spenser.
>> > >
>> > >The series will be supervised by current Spenser Review editor Theresa
>> > >Krier, with the assistance of a board comprised of Judith H. Anderson,
>> > >Heather Dubrow, Andrew Hadfield, and Debora Shuger. Some pieces will be
>> > >commissioned, but we hope that many people will send proposals for
pieces
>> > >they would like to contribute.
>> > >
>> > >We anticipate being able to print one piece per issue, of a maximum of
>> > >3000 words. If authors strongly wish to contribute longer pieces, we
>> > >suggest writing an essay in sections, such that it could be serialized.
>> > >
>> > >Please send all inquiries to the editor, Theresa Krier, at
>> [log in to unmask] or
>> > >Theresa Krier, editor
>> > >The Spenser Review
>> > >Department of English
>> > >University of Notre Dame
>> > >Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
>> > >U.S.A.
anne prescott
english, barnard college
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