The Flea, by John Donne (England, 1633)

The Flea

 John Donne

Very much a tongue-in-cheek seduction poem, in the rhetorical and argumentative style shared by the English metaphysical poets. I generally prefer the Chinese and Japanese poetic styles, which work with imagery rather than rhetoric, but in John Donne's "Flea" the rhetoric is tempered by humor.


Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
⁠Yet this enjoys before it woo,
⁠And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
⁠And this, alas! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
⁠Though use make you apt to kill me,
⁠Let not to that self-murder added be,
⁠And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
⁠'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
⁠Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
⁠Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

[John Donne Memorial by Nigel Boonham, 2012,
St Paul's Cathedral Churchyard]

John Donne (1572-1631) was an English metaphysical poet, satirist, lawyer, and Anglican priest. His work includes sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satirical verse, and sermons. Donne's style is marked by dramatic realism and sensuality. His poetry is vivid, using everyday words as well as striking metaphors. John Donne is considered one of the "metaphysical poets.

"The Flea" is an erotic metaphysical poem first published posthumously in 1633. The exact date of its composition is unknown, but it is likely that Donne wrote this poem in the 1590s, when he was a young law student at Lincoln's Inn, before he became a respected religious figure as Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral. The poem uses the conceit of a flea that has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover as an extended metaphor for their relationship. The speaker tries to persuade her to sleep with him, arguing that if their blood mingling in the flea is innocent, then sexual mingling would also be innocent.

Fleas were ubiquitous throughout the Renaissance, both in real life and in poetry. Donne's speaker enviously describes the flea's ability to suck its mistress's skin and meld its fluids with hers, which is how 17th-century society viewed lovemaking. Many lines have sexual overtones, such as the way the insect "swells" with blood in line eight.

Despite its lewdness, the speaker attempts to make his argument respectable when he suggests that the flea's action makes the couple married. The conclusion is filled with images of death, as the woman turns her finger purple as she crushes the flea. In Donne's time, phrases about death were euphemisms for orgasm, the "little death. Her act of killing the flea changes the speaker's tone slightly, as it provides a new rationale for his seduction: since you didn't lose your life with the flea, you won't lose much by giving yourself to me.

However, the tone of the poem is comical and the use of absurdity changes the meaning of the poem. The speaker's exaggerated way of expressing his request is influenced by John Donne's career as a lawyer. Donne uses satire to ridicule the way lawyers argue. In the end, it is clear that the speaker's conquest is not successful because of the deliberate flaws Donne uses in the speaker's argument.

Metaphysical poetry is rarely direct and easy to decipher, which makes it intellectually stimulating to read. Donne's themes are explained through unusual metaphors that turn the strangest idea into a depiction of human experience.

 

[Robert Hooke's drawing of a flea in Micrographia, 1665]

Poem cited from Wikisource.

Photos: via Wikimedia Commons

Lyric Poetry Around the World Index

Nana by Manet (1877)

In Édouard Manet's Nana, a nearly life-size work, we see an elegant young woman with blond hair who stands before a mirror, her face turned to the spectator. Her dress is incomplete; she wears a white underskirt, a frilly blue corsage, blue silk stockings and high-heeled shoes with delicately pointed toes. The interior of the room suggests that it is a boudoir. Behind the woman is a sofa, on which a mustachioed man dressed in a black tailcoat, a white shirt and a top hat can be partly seen on the right of the painting. He is holding a walking stick.

[Nana, by Manet (1877)]

What are we seeing?

Both the title ("Nana" was a popular assumed name for female prostitutes in France during the second half of the 19th century) and numerous details suggest that the picture represents a high class prostitute and her client. Nana is depicted in a full side view, her head and especially her gaze turned towards the viewer. Her presence is bold and she overshadows her male customer. With a little half-smile on her lips, she stares directly out at the viewer. There is no shame here, but the pride of a woman who is aware of her power and likes to use it. Nana looks extremely pleased with herself.

She holds a powder puff in her right hand and a lipstick in her left - apparently she is just making up her face. In front of her, on the left side of the picture, is a make-up mirror with a three-legged, wrought iron stand and two candlesticks with burned-out, extinguished candles (indicating that the night is just over). This painting is a playful homage to the courtesans of the era.

Although there is no nudity in this painting, it caused an outrage and was refused at the Salon of Paris - it was deemed to be contemptuous of the morality of the time (even in France!). Despite that, the Third Republic (which started in 1870) was the golden age of brothels which were an integral part of social life, as you can see in the stories of Maupassant (such as The Maison Tellier) or the novels of Zola - not to mention Offenbach's wonderful operetta La Vie Parisienne, in which a Swedish aristocratic couple "does" Paris, she for shopping and the Opera, he for the women.

It was the era of famous houses, like Le Chabanais or Le Sphinx, whose reputation crossed borders, and where stars performed. In Paris at the middle of the century there were around 200 official establishments, under the control of the police and doctors, but only around sixty at the end, following the proliferation of clandestine brothels which then had 15,000 prostitutes. In 1871, the writer Maxime Du Camp estimated that Paris had 120,000 clandestine prostitutes; in 1889. the figure was put at 100,000. Alongside “meeting houses” where prostitutes did not live, but where they only came to work, there were brasseries with “rising” waitresses (115 in Paris), as well as perfumeries, or bath and massage institutes. The police estimated that 40,000 customers per day frequented the various houses, which would be equivalent to saying that a quarter of Parisian men had relationships with prostitutes.

By the way, it is possible that Manet found inspiration in L'Assommoir by Émile Zola, in which a character called Nana appears as a young prostitute. But Manet also formed an inspiration for Zola: in 1880 Zola published his well-known novel under the title of Nana in which he describes the later life of the same character.

Although refused by the Salon, Manet found another way to display his painting. He hung it in the window of a trinket shop on the Boulevard des Capucines, one of Paris’s main thoroughfares which was frequented by masses of prostitutes at night. In this way, the painting became a popular attraction.

The work is now at the Kunsthalle Hamburg in Germany.

Manet

Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism, known for his enigmatic and inventive paintings about urban life. His quick, flat style of painting paved the way for the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and many other modern artists by rejecting the standards of the Academy.

Manet's paintings often stirred controversy and were criticized by the art establishment and wider society. His most famous work, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), caused a scandal when it was exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863. The painting depicts two fully clothed men sitting with a naked woman in a park. And his painting Olympia of 1865 caused another scandal with its depiction of a confident and confrontational nude woman. The painting challenged traditional notions of beauty and femininity. Today too, these works, along with others such as Nana, are considered watershed paintings that mark the start of modern art. 

Édouard Manet was born in Paris to an affluent and well-connected family. His father Auguste was a judge who expected his son to pursue a career in law, but, encouraged by his uncle, Édouard was drawn to painting. After a failed attempt to have him join the Navy, his father allowed Manet to study under the academic painter Thomas Couture (from 1850 to 1856). In his spare time, Manet copied Old Masters such as Titian in the Louvre. He also made brief visits to Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, during which time he was influenced by the Dutch painter Frans Hals and the Spanish artists Velázquez and Goya. In 1856, Manet opened his own studio and started working in earnest.

In 1863, Manet married Suzanne Leenhoff, a Dutch-born piano teacher two years his senior with whom he had been romantically involved for almost ten years. Leenhoff initially had been employed by Manet's father, Auguste, to teach Manet and his younger brother piano. It is rumored that she also may have been Auguste's mistress.

Manet became friends with the Impressionists Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne, and Pissarro through another painter, Berthe Morisot, who was a member of the group and drew him into their activities. They later became widely known as the Batignolles group (Le groupe des Batignolles).

[A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) was one of the last paintings of Manet. It depicts a scene in the Folies-Bergère nightclub in Paris. The woman at the bar is a real person, known as Suzon, who worked at the Folies-Bergère in the early 1880s. Thus she represents one of the barmaid/prostitutes for which the Folies-Bergère was well-known. She lacks the bold self-awareness of Nana, but that is not so strange considering her more difficult circumstances.]

The roughly painted style and photographic lighting in Manet's paintings was seen as specifically modern, and as a challenge to the Renaissance works he copied or used as source material. He used a direct, alla prima method of painting employing opaque paint on a light ground. Novel at the time, this method made possible the completion of a painting in a single sitting. It was adopted by the Impressionists, and became the prevalent method of painting in oils for following generations. Manet's work is considered "early modern", partially because of the opaque flatness of his surfaces, the frequent sketch-like passages, and the black outlining of figures, all of which draw attention to the surface of the picture plane and the material quality of paint.

But above all, he created Nana, in which he showed us a young courtesan face to face, as a real person, not someone you could lightly brush aside.

Paintings and their stories:

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli 

The Nightmare by Fuseli

Suzanna and the Elders by Gentileschi

Jupiter and Io by Coreggio

The Pretty Horsebreaker by Landseer

Girl in a white kimono by Breitner

Lady Godiva by Collier

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema

Saint George and the Dragon by Uccello

Proserpine by Rosetti 

The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse

Judith and Holofernes by Klimt

Nana by Manet

Symphony in White, No. 2, by Whistler

Judith and Holofernes by Klimt (1901)

Judith I by Gustav Klimt shows us the half-naked upper body of a proud modern woman, who is evidently from the upper-classes. The half-closed eyes and the open mouth suggest an unmistakable eroticism. Her face has been rendered with photographic precision, and is shown against a luminous golden background that enhances her elegance, and sets-off her dark black hair. She wears a gold-inlaid collar, which creates a sharp separation between her head and her body. Over her right shoulder she wears a brown, semi-sheer garment. And then, when you look in the lower right-hand corner of the painting, you see (half hidden) that she is showing the cut-off head of a bearded man...

What are we seeing?

Judith I, officially "Judith und Holofernes" according to the inscription in the gold-colored frame (Klimt had the inscription made because many viewers wrongly thought the painting was of Salome with the head of John the Baptist), is an oil painting made by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt in 1901. It depicts the biblical figure Judith holding the head of Holofernes after beheading him. The beheading has been frequently portrayed in art since the Renaissance, and Klimt himself would paint a second work on the same the subject in 1909. The work is in the collection of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna.

According to the story, Judith, in her finest clothes, gained access to the residence of the Assyrian general Holofernes and then beheaded him because he threatened to overrun the Jewish people. In Renaissance painting and traditional iconography, Judith is usually depicted as a strong and determined woman, who risks her life to save her people. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, literature and the visual arts turned her into a femme fatale, a woman who took pleasure in the decapitation of the man she had previously seduced, as an example of independence and a threat to male chauvinism.

Klimt's portrait is a textbook example of this modern interpretation of the Judith figure. She is no longer the fighting woman who saves her people from the enemy, but a feared seductress. Her image has been transformed into an erotic, sensual symbol, which fits perfectly into the decadent aesthetic atmosphere that was prevalent at that time.

Klimt depicts Judith up to her waist, frontal and semi-naked, with her left breast visible and the other only slightly obscured by a transparent fabric. The half-closed eyes and the open mouth suggest an unmistakable eroticism. The lighting from below accentuates her features, emphasizing her sensual and triumphant facial expression. The focus on the Judith figure is striking. Nowhere is reference made to the other aspects of the Bible story. Only Holofernes' head is just visible as a marginal and unimportant detail, pushed to the edge of the work. It is entirely about her and the seductive but at the same time disastrous sensuality that radiates out of her.

It is assumed that the woman who modeled for Judith was Adele Bloch-Bauer, Klimt's patron and mistress (and the wife of a banker), who posed for him frequently in the period 1907-1912. The jeweled necklace is the same one that Bloch wears in the first portrait that Klimt painted of her in 1907 (see below). The relationship between the two is said to have begun around 1900 and may explain the deep erotic charge of the work, which became one of the most iconic works from the early twentieth century.

[Portrait of Adèle Bloch-Bauer (1904-1907) - note the necklace]

Judith

Judith ("woman from Judea") is the protagonist from the deuterocanonical book of the Bible of the same name. This means that the book is part of the Septuagint and the Old Testament in the Roman Catholic Church, but is seen as apocryphal by Protestants and Jews. The book as we know it is thought to be the Greek translation of a Hebrew or Aramaic original from around 100 BCE (in the Jewish Bible only texts which were available in the original Hebrew language were included). The author makes several historical errors - perhaps deliberately. For example, Nebuchadnezzar II was not king of Assyria, but king of Babylon, which conquered Judea in the sixth century BCE. The story is therefore in reality not about Nebuchadnezzar, but about the Seleucid king Demetrius I, who around 163 BCE sent his general Nikanor to Judea - that army was defeated and Nikanor was beheaded (the story occurs in 1 Maccabees 7). The writer ironically parodies that story, and makes the enemy into a much more formidable one.

The following account is from my article about Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans, an oratorio about this subject included in my "Choral Masterworks" at this blog:

"The story tells how Judith, a Jewish widow, saves her people from the army of Nebuchadnezzar. The city of Betulia is besieged by the legendary Holofernes, an army commander who was commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar II to conquer the entire world. The huge Assyrian army moves west and seems invincible. The Israelites closed the passes, built fortifications on all the high mountain peaks, and erected obstacles in the plains. Then Holofernes cuts off the water supply to the city, in the hope that the inhabitants will perish of thirst and surrender.

The townspeople are suffering and despair of a happy ending. The beautiful, wealthy widow Judith and her servant Abra secretly make their way to the camp of general Holofernes pretending to sue for peace. Holofernes falls in love with Judith, and, after giving a feast in her honor in his tent, he falls into a drunken sleep. Judith seizes the opportunity and beheads him with his own sword.

"Then she came to the pillar of the bed, which was at Holofernes' head, and took down his fauchion (short sword) from thence, And approached to his bed, and took hold of the hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day. And she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him. And tumbled his body down from the bed, and pulled down the canopy from the pillars; and anon after she went forth, and gave Holofernes his head to her maid; And she put it in her bag of meat..."

[Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-13)]

Judith and Abra manage to escape back to their city. The besiegers become confused when they see Holofernes' head displayed on the city wall, and the citizens immediately attack and drive away the leaderless and demoralized Assyrians. The story of Judith is one of the few in the Bible where the power of woman exceeds that of man!

Many artists were inspired by the dramatic story of Judith. Donatello was the first artist to cast a bronze sculpture, for the palace garden of the Medici; Michelangelo painted Judith in a corner of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. Lucas Cranach, Botticelli, Paolo Veronese and Caravaggio also painted Judith. The gory theme was very popular around 1600, especially among Caravagists: Cristofano Allori created the work Judith with the Head of Holofernes around 1610, which depicts Judith with Holofernes' head in her left hand. Caravaggio himself also painted the canvas Judith beheading Holofernes. Judith beheads Holofernes is a famous painting by the Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (see above). And more recently, Gustav Klimt painted a Judith holding the head of Holofernes; he even made two paintings about her, Judith I and Judith II."

The wonderful thing is that Klimt wholly concentrates on Judith as a sort of erotic explosion - he doesn't even let us see a weapon, and Holofernes' head is shown almost as an afterthought.

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was the best-known representative of Viennese Art Nouveau and founding president of the Vienna Secession (Wiener Jugendstil). Characteristic of his later works, for which he became best known, is the "decorative ornamentalism" (in which he often also worked with gold leaf) and the suggestive-erotic symbolism. He mainly made a name for himself with his portraits of women and allegorical works. Klimt's art emerged during an artistic heyday in Belle Epoque Vienna. His oeuvre is considered exemplary of the tension between conservatism and the urge for progress at the time.

During the Belle Époque, Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary, was a dynamic, cosmopolitan metropolis with around two million inhabitants. People lived there from all parts of the empire and of all races and languages. The advancing industrialization created a strong and wealthy citizen class, causing the city to grow into a center of elegance, luxury and entertainment.

At the same time, a cultural crisis was also palpable in fin de siècle Vienna, which was associated with the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was a city full of paradoxes, where splendid balls were organized and traditions were maintained that were intended to disguise the emerging changes ("modernity"), but within which social contradictions became increasingly noticeable. Around 1900, this tension between conservatism and the urge for progress proved to be an excellent breeding ground for a whole generation of artists, poets, architects and scientists, who broke new ground on the threshold of a new century. They included the composers Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg, the writer Arthur Schnitzler, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and various painters, such as Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Klimt in particular managed to bridge the gap between two centuries, the old world and the new, with his work.

Trained as an academic painter, and also popular as a portraitist of the upper classes, Klimt made a radical break with tradition halfway through his life in search of innovation. As the main initiator of the Secession movement, he opted for a completely personal and unique style, which was a synthesis of a multitude of influences, such as decorative art, Japanese ukiyo-e prints, the aesthetic art of the Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolist art. In this way he created an ultimately personal aesthetic beauty, related to Art Nouveau.

[Judith II by Klimt (1909) - this painting is much less powerful than Judith I
and looses itself in sheer decorativeness.
Also, Judith looks aggressive rather than erotic.]

[Incorporates some information and texts from the English and Dutch Wikipedia]

Paintings and their stories:

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli 

The Nightmare by Fuseli

Suzanna and the Elders by Gentileschi

Jupiter and Io by Coreggio

The Pretty Horsebreaker by Landseer

Girl in a white kimono by Breitner

Lady Godiva by Collier

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema

Saint George and the Dragon by Uccello

Proserpine by Rosetti 

The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse

Judith and Holofernes by Klimt

Nana by Manet

Symphony in White, No. 2, by Whistler

The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse (1888)

In The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse, a young woman with flaming red her and a white dress, is sitting in a wooden boat, on a river which flows through a wooded area. In the distance is an open vista with grassland and hills - we also see an old stone tower behind the trees on the left. In her right hand she holds the chain which is used to moor the boat. Over the side of the boat hangs an embroidered tapestry. In front of the boat we see three candles of which two have been extinguished, as well as a crucifix. Autumn leaves are floating on the water, and in the reeds we see two swallows flitting around.

[Waterhouse, the Lady of Shalott (1888)]

What are we seeing?

The Lady of Shalott (whose name was Elaine of Astolat) is a figure from Arthurian legend and also the title of a famous poem that Alfred Tennyson based on her story in 1832, about a young woman who suffers under a mysterious curse which holds her captive in a tower on an island called Shalott. For some unknown reason, she is forced to weave and go on weaving and is not allowed to leave her loom. She is also forbidden to look out the window and the outside world is only visible to her through its reflection in a mirror. There she can see the river which encircles the island and which flows down to King Arthur’s castle at Camelot, and she also sees laborers in the fields, and sometimes knights riding by. She embroiders the scenes she sees reflected in her mirror.

One day she glimpses the reflected image of the handsome knight Lancelot, and, suddenly overcome by love, she cannot resist looking at him directly. She abandons her loom and rushes to the window. This causes the mirror to crack from side to side, and she feels the curse come upon her. She leaves the tower and boards a boat that drifts downstream to Camelot, "singing her last song," but dying before she reaches there. Waterhouse shows her letting go the boat’s chain, while staring at a crucifix placed in front of three guttering candles (symbolizing that her life is about to be extinguished). Not lying down, as she was often depicted before, but with her head held high, she approaches death. She has written a message for those who will find her body, as the curse will punish her with the death sentence. In this, Tennyson’s poem ends as did many other stories popularized during the era: with the untimely demise of the lovely heroine.

In Thomas Malory's 15th-century compilation of Arthurian tales, Le Morte d'Arthur, the story is rather different - in her father's castle, Elaine of Astolat nurses a wounded Lancelot back to health, at which time she falls in love with him. However, when he is leaving, Lancelot offers to pay her, which she angrily refuses. After Lancelot has gone away, Elaine dies of heartbreak and in accordance with her instructions, her body is placed in a small boat, clutching a lily in one hand, and her final letter in the other. She then floats down the river to Camelot, where she is discovered by King Arthur's court. Lancelot is summoned and hears the contents of the letter, which explains what happened. Ashamed, he pays for her rich burial. Tennyson reworked this story in the poem "Lancelot and Elaine" in his Idylls of the King.

[Elaine, by Toby Rosenthal (1874) depicts Elaine’s postmortem voyage from Astolat to Camelot: “In her right hand the lily, in her left / The letter—all her bright hair streaming down.” This American painting was heavily influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. Rosenthal’s work sparked a sort of "Elaine hysteria" in the United States: clubs were formed in her honor, dirges and waltzes were composed, and copies of Idylls of the King sold out in bookstores. See The Phenomenon of Elaine at the website of the Art Institute of Chicago.]

Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) is one of the most popular English poets. He often addressed English mythology (for example the Arthurian legend in Idylls of the King 1859) and history (for example The Charge of the Light Brigade) and thus offered a wide variety of templates for the Victorian art movements of the 19th century, such as the Aesthetic Movement, the Arts and Craft Movement, which later ended in Art Nouveau, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, for which his lyrical ballad The Lady of Shalott in particular was a recurring theme. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Two aspects, in particular, of "The Lady of Shalott" intrigued these artists: the idea of the lady trapped in her tower and the dying woman floating down the river towards Camelot.

But what does this poem mean? Several explanations are possible. One is about the restricted position of women in Victorian times, when women were expected to be chaste wives and mothers and stay at home. The Lady of Shalott is likewise a passive and pure woman who has been locked up. Compare that to the position of Lancelot and other men, who are free to go out and have various adventures. In that case, we can see the Lady of Shalott's escape from the tower as an act of defiance, a symbol of female empowerment.

On the other hand, the poem can also be interpreted as a metaphor for the solitary nature of the artist's creative life, suggesting that the artist must live in isolation from the surrounding world. When he mingles with the world, he dies as an artist. Retired in the tower, the Lady of Shalott works hard at her art; but when she is interrupted, she is doomed. Over the course of his career, Tennyson often felt overwhelmed by his celebrity status, which compromised his privacy and interrupted his writing.

Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) studied briefly at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, after which he set up his independent studio and became known as a Pre-Raphaelite painter. His preference was for mythological representations. With his colorful images of women, Waterhouse was much appreciated in the British Empire and at the World Fairs in the 19th century. He drew inspiration from writers such as Ovid, Keats, Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Dante. One of his most famous paintings is the present painting of The Lady of Shalott, now on display at the Tate Gallery in London. He actually painted three different scenes from this story, in 1888, 1894, and 1916. Another of Waterhouse's favorite subjects was Ophelia; the most familiar of his paintings of Ophelia depicts her just before her death, putting flowers in her hair as she sits on a tree branch leaning over a lake. Like The Lady of Shalott and other Waterhouse paintings, it deals with a woman dying in or near water.

Waterhouse was married to Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse, who was a painter of flower-paintings in her own right. It is thought that she modeled for her husband in The Lady of Shalott. The landscape setting is highly naturalistic; the painting was made during Waterhouse’s brief period of plein-air painting.

Two more scenes from The Lady of Shalott

Waterhouse painted two more scenes from The Lady of Shalott. These are:

In 1894, The Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot (now in the Leeds Art Gallery). This is a pivotal scene in the third part of the poem: the Lady spies "bold Sir Launcelot" in her mirror: the sight of the handsome knight and his singing draws her away from her loom to the window, golden yarn still clinging around her knees, bringing down the curse upon her as "the mirror crack'd from side to side." She leaves the tower to take a boat across the river, but meets her death before she reaches Camelot. Behind her you see the cracked mirror, which reveals part of the scene (it is not a window you see, but a reflection of a window and the scenery outside).

In 1915, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto). The painting shows the Lady of Shalott resting from her weaving. The title is a quotation from Tennyson's poem: the Lady is still confined in her tower, weaving a tapestry, viewing the world outside only through the reflection in the large mirror in the background. The mirror reveals a bridge over a river leading to the walls and towers of Camelot. The scene is set shortly before an image of Lancelot appears in the mirror, enticing the Lady out of her tower to her death - so just before the previous painting. The lady wears a red dress, in a room with Romanesque columns holding up the arches of the window reflected in the mirror. The shuttles of the loom resemble boats, perhaps foreshadowing the Lady's death.

The poem by Tennyson (1832)

Part I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
       To many-tower'd Camelot;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
       Round about Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.
The sunbeam showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island in the river
       Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
       The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early,
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
       O'er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy,
       Lady of Shalott.'

The little isle is all inrail'd
With a rose-fence, and overtrail'd
With roses: by the marge unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken sail'd,
       Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearl garland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparelled,
       The Lady of Shalott.


Part II

No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
       To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
       The Lady of Shalott.

She lives with little joy or fear.
Over the water, running near,
The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.
Before her hangs a mirror clear,
       Reflecting tower'd Camelot.
And as the mazy web she whirls,
She sees the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
       Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
       Goes by to tower'd Camelot:
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
       The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
       And music, came from Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead
Came two young lovers lately wed;
'I am half sick of shadows,' said
       The Lady of Shalott.


Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flam'd upon the brazen greaves
       Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
       Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
       As he rode down from Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
       Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
       As he rode down from Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
       Moves over green Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
       As he rode down from Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
'Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:'
       Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom
She made three paces thro' the room
She saw the water-flower bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
       She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
       The Lady of Shalott.


Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
       Over tower'd Camelot;
Outside the isle a shallow boat
Beneath a willow lay afloat,
Below the carven stern she wrote,
       The Lady of Shalott.

A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight,
All raimented in snowy white
That loosely flew (her zone in sight
Clasp'd with one blinding diamond bright)
       Her wide eyes fix'd on Camelot,
Though the squally east-wind keenly
Blew, with folded arms serenely
By the water stood the queenly
       Lady of Shalott.

With a steady stony glance—
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance—
       She look'd down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day:
She loos'd the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
       The Lady of Shalott.

As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,
       Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boathead wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her deathsong,
       The Lady of Shalott.

A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darken'd wholly,
And her smooth face sharpen'd slowly,
       Turn'd to tower'd Camelot:
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
       The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden wall and gallery,
A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
Deadcold, between the houses high,
       Dead into tower'd Camelot.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
To the planked wharfage came:
Below the stern they read her name,
       The Lady of Shalott.

They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,
       The wellfed wits at Camelot.
'The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not,—this is I,
       The Lady of Shalott.'

[Incorporates some information and texts from the English and Dutch Wikipedia]

Paintings and their stories:

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli 

The Nightmare by Fuseli

Suzanna and the Elders by Gentileschi

Jupiter and Io by Coreggio

The Pretty Horsebreaker by Landseer

Girl in a white kimono by Breitner

Lady Godiva by Collier

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema

Saint George and the Dragon by Uccello

Proserpine by Rosetti 

The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse

Judith and Holofernes by Klimt

Nana by Manet

Symphony in White, No. 2, by Whistler

 

 

Proserpine by Rosetti (paintings and their stories)

Proserpine is a well-known painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1874, which shows a melancholic woman with sad eyes and long black hair, holding a half-eaten pomegranate in her left hand. The pomegranate catches the viewer's gaze, the color of its flesh matching that of the woman's lips. Overall, dark tones characterize the color palette of the work. The decorative quality of the picture is accentuated by the curve of the ivy spray in the upper left part, which is echoed in the woman's arm and the rich folds of her dark green dress.

[Proserpine by Rosetti (1874)]

What are we seeing?

As the title indicates, this painting is based on a story from Roman mythology: in classical myth Proserpine was kidnapped by Pluto, the god of the underworld, to be his wife. Eating food from the underworld would cause a living person to stay there forever. Unfortunately, Proserpine had eaten six pomegranates, and so Pluto confined her to his kingdom six months of each year. Her holding a half-eaten pomegranate in the painting symbolizes her captivity.

But there is another layer: Jane Morris, the wife of Rossetti’s friend William Morris, frequently modeled for Rosetti - also for this painting. For many years she was Rosetti's lover and her situation therefore resembled that of Proserpine, going back and forth between two worlds - at least, that is what Rosetti hints at here.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti began this painting in 1871 and painted at least eight different versions, completing the last one only in 1882, the year of his death. The best known version is the above one, the seventh one from 1874, which had been commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland, and is now on display at Tate Britain in London.

In the painting, Proserpine, like her model Jane Morris, is a magnificent woman with fine features, slender hands and pale skin which contrasts with her deep black hair. Rossetti painted this at a period in his life when his love for Jane Morris had reached the point of obsession. He himself has written about this painting: 

“She is represented in a gloomy corridor of her palace, with the fatal fruit in her hand. As she passes, a gleam strikes on the wall behind her from some inlet suddenly opened, and admitting for a moment the sight of the upper world; and she glances furtively towards it, immersed in thought. The incense-burner stands beside her as the attribute of a goddess. The ivy branch in the background may be taken as a symbol of clinging memory."

Proserpine

Proserpine is a Roman deity, the goddess of fertility. She is the daughter of Jupiter (the king of the gods) and Ceres (the goddess of agriculture) and wife of Pluto (the god who ruled the underworld), who kidnapped her into his domain and made her his wife. She therefore became the queen of the underworld. She corresponds to Persephone in Greek mythology.

The name "Proserpine" (in Latin "Proserpina") is derived from proserpere (“to crawl out”), referring to the grain germ crawling out of the earth when spring comes.

Pluto asked Jupiter for Proserpine's hand, but Jupiter thought that her mother Ceres would never allow her daughter to live in the dark underworld. However, he gave him the freedom to kidnap her, which Pluto then did. In a meadow on the slopes of Mount Etna, where Proserpine was picking flowers, Pluto appeared with his chariot drawn by four black horses and dragged the struggling Proserpine down to the underworld. While Proserpine was being dragged to the chariot by Pluto, she called to her friends and her mother in desperation. But no one heard her. Later, out of great concern, Ceres went looking for her daughter, but couldn't find her anywhere. Eventually she learned about her daughter's abduction from the spring nymph Kyane, who was sitting at her spring when Pluto raced past with Proserpine in his chariot. The heartbroken mother finally forced Jupiter's agreement that Proserpine only had to spend half the year in the underworld. The myth symbolizes the round of the seasons: when Prosepine is in the underworld, we are in autumn and winter, when nothing grows, and when she is back in the upper world, we are in spring and summer when food plants, trees and flowers are in their glory.
 

Jane Morris

Jane Burden (1839-1914) was working as a waitress in an inn in 1857 when William Morris (a textile designer and artist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement) met her and sought her as a model. He taught her manners and helped her learn French and Italian, and introduced her to music and dance - later in life she became an excellent pianist. They married in 1859. Jane was introduced into the circles of the Pre-Raphaelites where, with her pale skin and copper-red hair, she was considered an exceptional beauty. As sitter, she became associated with 31 paintings of this group. Jane was an accomplished embroiderer and worked with her husband in their furnishings business, embroidering items that he designed. But the marriage was an unhappy one, and in the late 1860s, Jane began a romantic liaison with Rossetti that lasted until 1876 (William Morris deliberately turned a blind eye). She was the model for some of his most famous paintings, and her striking appearance provided him with inspiration for over twenty years. Jane broke off the relation with Rosetti after she discovered that he had become addicted to drugs, but she remained close friends with him until the end of his life in 1882.

 

In the painting, Rossetti brings out the poignant situation of Proserpine, as well as that of Jane Morris, torn between her husband, the father of her two daughters, and her lover. It is an honest picture: look at Jane’s eyes and see the heaviness of her sorrow - the sorrow of a woman who knows she has been trapped forever by her own beauty.

 

[Jane Morris (1865, photo by John Robert Parsons)]
 

Dante Gabriel Rosetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London, 1828-1882) was one of the founders of a group of English painters known as the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood." He was the eldest son of the Italian poet Gabriele Rossetti, who had emigrated to England. Rossetti showed an interest in literature from an early age, wanting to become a poet, but he was also attracted to painting, especially medieval Italian art. He was educated at the Royal Academy in London, where his teachers were Ford Madox Brown and William Holman Hunt.

Together with Hunt and John Everett Millais, he founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His first major work - from 1849 - was The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. The Pre-Raphaelites strove for a renewal of art by taking early Italian painting ("before Raphael") as an example. Inspired by the poetry of Dante Alighieri and the mystical poetry and painting of William Blake, Rosetti developed a symbolic-decorative style that is already moving in the direction of Art Nouveau. In the field of poetry (he also became an excellent poet) he was inspired by John Keats. He also translated Dante into English.

In 1860 he married Elizabeth Siddal, his favorite model, who died two years later. Even after her death she would remain the subject of his paintings and poems. Later models included Fanny Cornforth, Alexa Wilding and - as mentioned above - Jane Morris, the wife of William Morris.

Sonnet

On the top right of the canvas "Proserpine" is inscribed by the artist, followed by his sonnet in Italian. The same sonnet in English is inscribed on the painting's frame, which was also designed by Rosetti and which has roundels which resemble a section of a pomegranate:

        Afar away the light that brings cold cheer
        Unto this wall, – one instant and no more
        Admitted at my distant palace-door
        Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
        Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
        Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
        That chills me: and afar how far away,
        The nights that shall become the days that were.

        Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
        Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:
        And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
        (Whose sounds mine inner sense in fain to bring,
        Continually together murmuring) —
        'Woe me for thee, unhappy Proserpine'.

[Incorporates some information from the English and Dutch Wikipedia]

 

Paintings and their stories:

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli 

The Nightmare by Fuseli

Suzanna and the Elders by Gentileschi

Jupiter and Io by Coreggio

The Pretty Horsebreaker by Landseer

Girl in a white kimono by Breitner

Lady Godiva by Collier

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema

Saint George and the Dragon by Uccello

Proserpine by Rosetti 

The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse

Judith and Holofernes by Klimt

Nana by Manet

Symphony in White, No. 2, by Whistler

Saint George and the Dragon by Uccello (Paintings and their stories)

Saint George and the Dragon was painted around 1470 by Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) and is on view in the National Gallery in London.

This is a strange, cartoonish painting - a two-legged, winged dragon is being killed by a boyish knight on a prancing horse, while a storm is gathering at his back (a sign of divine intervention to help the knight to victory); he pricks the lance into the dragon's head (its maw is wide open) and blood drips on the ground. Behind the dragon we see a grotto with a weirdly gaping entrance and water on the floor, presumably the lair of the dragon. To the left stands an elegantly dressed (but bored-looking) young woman who uses her blue belt to hold the dragon on a leash like a lap dog. Also look at the unrealistic, geometrical shapes of the grass, and the colored discs on the dragon's wings...

What do we see?

These are two episodes from the legend of St. George, whose story is told as follows. The citizens of Silene in Libya were terrorized by a dragon. Every day he devoured two sheep, which were sacrificed to appease him. When the last sheep had disappeared in this way, the dragon demanded human sacrifices. These were selected by drawing lots. One day the lot fell on the king's daughter, and although the king pleaded with the citizens to spare her life, they refused; they had lost all their children and there was no reason why the king should not lose his. She went to her death in bridal clothes. But George, who was a military tribune, happened to be passing the lake where the dragon lived, near which the princess was awaiting her fate. When the dragon appeared George wounded the monster and called to the princess to tie her belt around its neck, which then followed her like a lap dog on a leash. George next promised the king and the people that he would kill the beast if everyone would be baptized by him. When the king and people agreed, he killed the dragon and on that day 15,000 people were baptized. The dragon symbolizes paganism - slaying the dragon symbolizes the conversion of a pagan country to Christianity.

Who was St. George?

George of Cappadocia or Saint George (d. April 23, 303 CE) is a martyr and saint. Since 1222 he has been patron saint of England. He is best known for the above story that he killed a dragon. In fact, Saint George is one of the saints who is completely fictional. The first mentions of him were recorded hundreds of years after his supposed martyrdom. It is also not clear where this Saint George would have lived, he is placed on the African coast but also in Asia Minor. Where most saints were peaceful and contemplative, and overcame evil by prayer, the warlike and courageous St George was appealing to medieval knights and warriors. The story of St George and the dragon appears in a popular collection of saints' lives written by Jacobus de Voragine in the 13th century, called 'The Golden Legend'. By the way, St George is also the patron of boy scouts and I now realize where I have heard this story before: when I was in elementary school, I was forced to be a boy scout for several years as my parents were (rightly) worried that I stayed too much in the house reading books (my family was not Roman Catholic, so I was never familiar with the stories of the saints). 

 

The painting and the painter

Paolo Uccello (Florence, ca. 1397 – 1475) was an important Italian painter and mathematician from the early Renaissance. Uccello was trained under the sculptor Ghiberti from about 1407 to 1414 and worked in Venice as a designer of mosaics (1425-30). He combined an International Gothic figure style and love of decorative effects with a profound interest in single point perspective (using lines that lead to one point to create an illusion of depth within a painting), characteristic of the Early Renaissance. With his precise and analytical mind, Paolo Uccello tried to apply a scientific method to depict objects in three-dimensional space - in the present painting that technique is not perfect: the geometric patches of grass recede towards the horizon, but the rectangular stones of the ground slope up to the right. 

Uccello's idiosyncratic style had few followers. His later reputation as an eccentric, perspective-obsessed recluse was mainly influenced by Giorgio Vasari, who painted something of a caricature of him in his book Lives of the Artists, where he wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point.

Saint George and the Dragon dates from around 1460-1470 and can now be seen in the National gallery in London. The website of the National Gallery mentions about this painting: "We don’t know who this painting was for, but its small scale and non-religious feel – it’s more about a magical adventure than Christian virtue – suggest it was intended for someone’s home. It was relatively cheap to make: it’s in oil on canvas and contains no expensive pigments or gilding."

Before it was acquired by the National gallery in 1959, the painting remained relatively hidden in the Lanckoroński Collection in Vienna. It was seized by the Nazis with the onset of the Second World War, only to be consigned to a Swiss bank vault for safekeeping once returned to Count Lanckoroński after the war. So when it was offered to the Gallery in late 1958, few people had ever seen the picture in the flesh.

 

Paintings and their stories:

The Birth of Venus by Botticelli 

The Nightmare by Fuseli

Suzanna and the Elders by Gentileschi

Jupiter and Io by Coreggio

The Pretty Horsebreaker by Landseer

Girl in a white kimono by Breitner

Lady Godiva by Collier

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema

Saint George and the Dragon by Uccello

Proserpine by Rosetti 

The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse

Judith and Holofernes by Klimt

Nana by Manet

Symphony in White, No. 2, by Whistler

 

Chamberlain's Japanese Things: obsolete beyond saving

Basil hall Chamberlain was a scholar employed by the Japanese government. After arriving in Japan in 1873, he first taught at the Imperial Naval School in Tokyo, and then was professor at Tokyo University. Chamberlain was a giant among Westerners in the Japan of his period, and helped many others, such as Lafcadio Hearn. His achievements include the first publication of a translation of the Kojiki, studies of the Ainu and Ryukyuan languages, and as co-writer with W. B. Mason the 1891 edition of “A Handbook for Travellers in Japan.” 

But Chamberlain is perhaps best remembered for his informal and popular one-volume encyclopedia “Japanese Things,” which first appeared in 1890 and which he revised several times thereafter. I have the 20th Tuttle reprint from 1994, and that was not the last one. But wait… what value has an encyclopedia from 1890 in 2023? I have been browsing through my old copy and to my regret the answer must be: none, it is totally obsolete.

The only thing you can get out of it is how the late 19th c. Westerners looked at Japan. Not surprisingly, their views are mostly very Europe-centered. Japanese literature "lacks genius," according to Chamberlain (he obviously had not read “Genji Monogatari”), and as the Japanese were only strong in small things, "they were weak in architecture." Well, what about Horyuji?

This a book where you may go for some quaint, superseded ideas, how Europeans in 1890 thought about certain aspects of Japan, but not for real information. When you need to know more about the form of the Japanese government, about literature and history, about Buddhism or festivals, of course only a modern encyclopedia will be of use. Even Wikipedia, despite its many flaws and the frequent blunders in articles about Japanese subjects, is a better resource. A reprint of this book is not necessary!

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy in three acts by Oscar Wilde, first performed on February 14, 1895 at the St. James Theatre in London in a production by George Alexander. The title of the play is a play on words: "Earnest" means "sincere," while the first name "Ernest" plays a central role in the story.

[Allan Aynesworth, Evelyn Millard, Irene Vanbrugh and George Alexander
in the 1895 premiere]

A comedy in which the protagonists assume fictitious personas to escape burdensome social obligations. The play was written after the success of Wilde's earlier plays Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's main themes are the triviality with which institutions such as marriage are treated, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most popular play.

Two English gentlemen, Algernon and Jack, are bon vivants who devote their leisure time to pleasure. Algernon invents a sick friend named Bunbury so he can go to the country (a trick he calls "Bunburying"), and Jack pretends to have to take care of his dissolute brother Ernest so he can come to town.

[Original production, 1895
Allan Aynesworth as Algernon (left) and George Alexander as Jack]

Jack, who always pretends to be his brother Ernest when he is in town, falls in love with Algernon's cousin Gwendolen and proposes to her. Gwendolen says it is her life's goal to marry someone named Ernest. Algernon visits Jack's country home under the false pretense of being Jack's brother Ernest. While there, he falls in love with Jack's ward, Cecily. She, too, considers the name Ernest an absolute requirement for her future husband. Algernon's Aunt Augusta is absolutely opposed to her daughter's marriage to Jack after she learns that Jack is an orphan who was found as an infant in a carpet bag at London's Victoria Station. However, she agrees to her nephew Algernon's marriage to Cecily when she learns of their considerable fortune. Jack, however, will only give his consent if he can marry Gwendolen in return.

It turns out that Cecily's governess, Miss Prism, accidentally left Algernon's brother in a handbag at the train station many years ago. Eventually, it is revealed that the foundling Jack was that infant, and thus is Algernon's older brother. It also turns out that Jack was actually named after his biological father, Ernest John. Jack has been telling the truth all along without knowing it.

To explain: Jack is a slang form of John. So Jack becomes E(a)rnest John, the "truthful John" - a play on words.

[Gwendolen (Irene Vanbrugh), Merriman (Frank Dyall)
and Cecily (Evelyn Millard), in the original production, Act II]

While Wilde had long been famous for his dialogue and use of language, it has been said that he achieved a unity and mastery in Earnest that is unmatched in his other plays, with the possible exception of Salomé. While his earlier comedies suffer from an unevenness resulting from the thematic clash between the trivial and the serious, Earnest achieves a pitch-perfect style. Three distinct registers can be discerned in the play. The dandyish insouciance of Jack and Algernon - established early with Algernon's exchange with his servant - betrays an underlying unity despite their different attitudes. Lady Bracknell's formidable pronouncements are as startling for their use of hyperbole and rhetorical extravagance as for their disturbing opinions. In contrast, the speech of Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism is characterized by "pedantic precept" and "idiosyncratic diversion." The play is also full of epigrams and paradoxes. Although Wilde uses by now familiar characters - the dandy lord, the overbearing matriarch, the woman with a past, the puritanical young lady - his treatment is more subtle than in his earlier comedies.

Text of the play

Greatest Plays of All Time

Summer Sadness by Stéphane Mallarmé (France, 1887)

Summer Sadness

Stéphane Mallarmé

translation Ad Blankestijn

The sun on the sand, my dozing wrestler,
Heats a languid bath in the gold of your hair,
And, dissipating the perfume from your hostile cheek,
Mixes with your tears an amorous drink.

In that white-hot blaze the motionless silence
Made you say sadly, oh, my timid kisses,
"We shall never be a single mummy.
Under the ancient desert and the happy palm trees!"

But your hair is a lukewarm river
In which drowns without shuddering the soul that haunts us,
And finds the emptiness that you don't know.

I will taste the maquillage that your eyelids have wept,
To see if it knows how to give to the heart that you have broken
The numbness of azure and stone.


Le soleil, sur le sable, ô lutteuse endormie,
En l’or de tes cheveux chauffe un bain langoureux
Et, consumant l’encens sur ta joue ennemie,
Il mêle avec les pleurs un breuvage amoureux.

De ce blanc Flamboiement l’immuable accalmie
T’a fait dire, attristée, ô mes baisers peureux,
« Nous ne serons jamais une seule momie
Sous l’antique désert et les palmiers heureux ! »

Mais ta chevelure est une rivière tiède,
Où noyer sans frissons l’âme qui nous obsède
Et trouver ce Néant que tu ne connais pas.

Je goûterai le fard pleuré par tes paupières,
Pour voir s’il sait donner au cœur que tu frappas
L’insensibilité de l’azur et des pierres.

[Antoon Derkinderen, Portrait of Stephane Mallarme, 1891]

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-98) sits at a crossroads of styles at the end of the 19th century in France. His early work closely follows the style as established by Charles Baudelaire. He is also known as a direct precursor of the Symbolist movement, which emerged in France in the 1880s. From the 1860s, he developed a hermetic style marked by intellectualism and by the abstraction of German idealism. According to Mallarmé, poetry must suggest and act on the reader unconsciously. The poet can transform reality by consistently employing the human intellect and by using all the musical and magical powers of language. In his literary-aesthetic essays, Mallarmé distinguishes everyday, communicative language (la parole immédiate) from poetic language (la parole essentielle). The latter acts on the reader with sounds, agrammatical associations and (magical) symbols so that inner reality would be best approached. In this way, his fin-de-siècle style already anticipates 20th-century art forms such as Dadaism and Surrealism.