Is this woman Shakespeare?

"He had once, with delight, read a book with a laudatory preface by Erle Stanley Gardner that "proved" that Shakespeare's plays were the secret fruit of the Queen's marriage to England ..."

Shake-speare, The Mystery.
Sweet, George Elliot. Stanford Univ. Press, (Palo Alto), 1956.

Foreword by Erle Stanley Gardner.

Britomart

"If she was Belphoebe, then Frederica ... was Britomart ..."

Britomart figures in Edmund Spenser's knightly epic The Faerie Queene, where she is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity, representing English virtue - in particular, English military power - through a newly-coined etymology that associated Brit- as in Briton with Martis, here thought as of Mars, the Roman war god. (Spenser: Faërie Queene, book iii. Her marriage, book v. 6.)

Belphoebe

"... she had a look, he thought fancifully, of a modern Belphoebe in those garments, sunny hair and the accoutrements of a huntress."


Belphoebe (bel fee'bee, Greek, "sharp light")
The name may have been coined by Edmund Spenser for his character in The Faerie Queene. The Greek word belos means "dart" while phoibos
(root of the familiar Phoebe) means "light."


Spenser's Belphoebe is a well-armed virgin huntress, a version of both the goddess Diana and Queen Elizabeth I, and a militant personification of chastity. Her fighting skills are repeatedly tested and proven.

Antonia dreaming?

"... and wearing a St. Laurent skirt..."

Antonia Fraser

"There was also Lady Antonia Fraser ..."

Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. She is the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He was also a famed public crusader and writer. Her mother was the Countess of Longford, Elizabeth Pakenham (born 1906), the author of a series of popular biographical studies of Queen Victoria, Wellington, Churchill, the Queen Mother, and Queen Elizabeth II.
It was natural that Antonia should become a writer, coming from a family of writers, the "literary Longfords." As well as her father and mother, Lady Antonia's sister Rachel Billington was a novelist; another sister, Judith Kazantzis, was a feminist poet; a brother, Thomas Pakenham, was an historian; and her two eldest daughters, Rebecca and Flora, were both writers.

Lady Antonia was educated at the Catholic convent and Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall, BA 1953). She converted to Catholicism in her teens, following her parents' lead, and at the age of 23 she married Sir Hugh Fraser, a handsome Catholic, Scots nobleman and war hero with the SAS (Special Air Services). He was 15 years her senior.

Sir Hugh Fraser had been a Conservative member of Parliament for Stafford since 1945 and had served in Conservative cabinets. They lived in London (when he was at the House of Commons) and in summer on an island in Inverness-shire, Scotland, owned by him. They had three sons and three daughters, but their marriage was dissolved in 1977. Already she was living with Harold Pinter, the playwright, whom she married in 1980. Her first husband died of cancer in 1984.
Her first job was in George Weidenfeld's publishing house as a general assistant. Lord Weidenfeld was a family friend and had Lady Antonia editing the expletives from Saul Bellow's The Adventure of Augie March for the British market. She published several juvenile items and A History of Toys (1966) before her major work, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1969, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography. Her mother, Lady Longford, had won the same prize five years before with a biography of Queen Victoria (1964).

Elizabeth Tudor as Virgo-Astraea

In Greek mythology, Astræa or Astrea (English translation: "star-maiden") was a daughter of Zeus and Themis or of Eos and Astræus. She and her mother were both personifications of justice, though Astræa was also associated with innocence and purity.
Astræa, the celestial virgin, was the last of the immortals to live with humans during the Iron Age, the final stage in the world's disintegration from the utopian Golden Age. Fleeing from the new wickedness of humanity, she ascended to heaven to become the constellation Virgo; the scales of justice she carried became the nearby constellation Libra, reflected in her symbolic association with Justitia in Latin culture.
Astræa's hoped-for return (that is, the return of the utopian Golden Age of which she was the ambassador) was referred to in a phrase from Virgil's Eclogue IV: "Iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna" (The Virgin and the Days of Old return).

Contemplatively vague

"... he hoped he discerned the large, contemplatively vague figure of Dr Frances Yates..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Yates

Literary Matriarch

"There was Lady Longford, biographer of Queen Victoria..."

From The Times
October 24, 2002

Elizabeth Longford was matriarch of the most powerful and well-connected literary dynasty in the land — that of the Pakenhams, Frasers, Pinters and Billingtons — and her life was spent among intellectuals for whom the production of books of all kinds was at least as natural as the production of children. Her own historical writings combined erudition and thorough research with wide appeal. As Countess of Longford, wife of the 7th Earl (Frank Pakenham), she was a notable crusader in society and in Labour politics.

In 1964 Longford published the book that made her name, Victoria RI, a superbly sympathetic yet realistic portrait. There had not been a substantial life of the Queen for many years, and it is not too much to say that she was the first biographer to make Victoria into a living and understandable human being.

Among her children are the historians Antonia Fraser and Thomas Pakenham, the novelist Rachel Billington and the poet Judith Kazantzis.

benignly severe

"There was Dame Helen Gardner, head up, face benignly severe ..."

Professor Dame Helen Louise Gardner DBE (1908-1986) was an English literary academic and critic. A fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford from 1942, she became Merton Professor of Renaissance literature in the University of Oxford in 1966.

Her specialist areas were T. S. Eliot, the Metaphysical poets, Milton and religious poetry, with many essays published on the subjects, as well as on literary criticism itself.
Her 1949 collection of essays, The Art of T.S. Eliot, is regarded as a seminal work on the poet. In particular, she challenged the notion that Eliot was only accessible to those well-versed in his many allusions:

It is better, in reading poetry of this kind, to trouble too little about the ‘meaning’ than to trouble too much. If there are passages whose meaning seems elusive, where we feel we are ‘missing the point,’ we should read on, preferably aloud... We must find the meaning in the reading...

Idolater?

"...from Dr Roy Strong, at that time Director of the Gallery, and an iconographer, possibly even an idolater, of the Virgin Queen."

Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer.

He became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in 1959, and was its director 1967-73: Sir Roy came to prominence at age 32 when he became the youngest director of the National Portrait Gallery. He set about transforming its conservative image with a series of extrovert shows, including "600 Cecil Beaton portraits 1928-1968."

A different kind of people

"Alexander amused himself by counting powerful women: there was Dame Sybil Thorndike, graciously accepting a throne-like chair ..."

Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE (24 October 1882 – 9 June 1976) was a British actress.
In 1908 Sybil was spotted by the playwright George Bernard Shaw when she understudied the leading role of Candida in a tour directed by Shaw himself. There she also met her future husband, Lewis Casson. She played the title role of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan in 1924, which had been written with her specifically in mind. The production was a huge success, and was revived repeatedly until her final performance in the role in 1941.

Both Sybil and Lewis were active members of the Labour Party, and held strong left-wing views. Even when the 1926 General Strike stopped the first run of Saint Joan, they both still supported the strikers. Nonetheless, she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1931. As a pacifist, Sybil was a member of the Peace Pledge Union and gave readings for its benefit.

The First Half-Month of The Annotated Virgin

Well, my dear friends, after 17 days and 17 posts, I have managed to annotate the first 3 1/2 pages of The Prologue to The Virgin in the Garden!
I suppose at this rate i might finish this project in 10 years. Things have got to pick up a bit. I'm having a ball, incidentally, but i do want to press on and more swiftly make it through the heavily-reference-studded Prologue.

I hope that all of you are enjoying this as much as i am, though i doubt that anyone could enjoy it more.

A. Bednarowicz

Editor

That Mystifying UK School System

"Did you know that you are now an established O level set text?"

[Presumably one or more of Alexander's plays are being used in the O level test for "English" (?)]

"The O-level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification, usually taken at the age of fifteen/sixteen, conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education (GCE).
It was introduced as part of British educational reform in the 1950s alongside the more in-depth and academically rigorous A-level (Advanced Level). England, Wales and Northern Ireland replaced O-levels with GCSE exams in 1988.

The O-level was predominantly exam-based. This was advantageous for students in part-time or evening education. There was no summative "school certificate": each subject was a separate O-level in its own right.
O levels exams are often required as predecessors to A levels and by many employers as a minimum qualification for employment. A-level exams are the minimum entrance qualification required by UK universities."
[culled from various sources on the internet]

Pale Green Good Taste

"... a portrait of the late King, his Queen, and two princesses in vermillion lipstick, drooping skirts and sling-back shoes, all dwarfed entirely by the huge canvasful of pale green good taste and glitter of chandeliers and silver teapots in a drawing-room in Windsor ..."


Conversation piece at the Royal Lodge, Windsor
by Sir James Gunn
oil on canvas, 1950
59 1/2 in. x 39 1/2 in.


King George VI (1895-1952), Reigned 1936-52.
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1900-2002), Queen of George VI.
Queen Elizabeth II (1926-), Queen regnant.
Princess Margaret (1930-2002), Daughter of George VI; Countess of Snowdon.

Dressing Up

"He was nevertheless, at fifty, in well-cut olive gabardine, cream silk shirt and gold chrystanthemum tie, a handsome man.'

[Imagine this in gold -> ]

Sgt. Pepper and Mr. Eliot

"Alexander ... could place a shift of seam or change of cut in relation to tradition and the individual talent almost as well as he could a verse-form or a vocabulary."


"Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919) is an essay by poet and literary theorist T. S. Eliot. http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html

While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary theory. In this dual role, he acted as poet-critic, comparable to Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Tradition and the Individual Talent" formulates Eliot’s influential conception of the relationship between the poet and the literary tradition which precedes him.

Is man no more than this?

"Was it all a considered "statement", as the painter would have said, about accommodated and unaccommodated man?"

Act III, scene iv

KING LEAR

[Why,] thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well.

Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume.

Ha! here's three on 's are sophisticated; thou art the thing itself,

unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art.

Off, off, you lendings! Come unbutton here.

Tearing off his clothes

Thomas Cromwell

"Alexander thought, surveying Thomas Cromwell and the mock-soldiers, about the nature of modern parody."

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1485 – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman who served as King Henry VIII's chief minister from 1532 to 1540.

Thomas Cromwell was one of the patrons of Hans Holbein the Younger, as were Sir Thomas More and Anne Boleyn.

Holbein painted this famous portrait of Cromwell.

The Temple Well Purged?

"... after the iconoclastic excesses under young Edward VI, when angels, Mothers and Children had flared and crackled in the streets, immolated to a logical absolute God who disliked images."

Edward VI of England: Reigned 28 January 1547 – 6 July 1553

During this period, the English Reformation advanced under pressure from two directions: from the traditionalists on the one hand and the zealots on the other, who led incidents of iconoclasm (image-smashing) and complained that reform did not go far enough.

Begging in London

"Some carried brand new Benares begging bowls."

Sand et Sacripant

"Several George Sands, Mesdemoiselles Sacripant, in trousers, frilled shirts, and velvet berets."

An artist's rendering of George Sand (Aurore Dudevant)

Sand and the Proustian character Sacripant were women who dressed as men.

These photos (in male and female attire) are purportedly of the same woman --Odette-- the "original" from whom Proust drew his portrait of "Miss Sacripant."

Bestriding the counties

"... he was left to sit contemplating an alternative Gloriana ..."

The Folk

"... the peripatetic folk with the new ancient faces. Jesus boots, kaftans, sporadic bursts of song or tinkling breaking a tranquillised hush."

Backing Britain

"I'm Backing Britain was scrawled across this person's backside." (p. 9)


"I'm Backing Britain" was a brief patriotic campaign aimed at boosting the British economy which flourished in early 1968. The campaign started spontaneously when five Surbiton secretaries volunteered to work an extra half an hour each day without pay in order to boost productivity, and urged others to do the same. This invitation received an enormous response and a campaign took off spectacularly, becoming a nationwide movement within a week. Trade unions were suspicious of, and some directly opposed, the campaign as an attempt to extend working hours surreptitiously, and to hide inefficiency by management.

The composers Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent penned a song for Bruce Forsyth with these lyrics:
I'm Backing Britain

yes I'm Backing Britain

We're all Backing Britain

The Feeling is growing

So let's keep it going

The good times are blowing our way.

Lord Kitchener and His Valet

"On the way he had passed several recruiting posters for the First World War, pointing accusatory fingers at him, and a shop called "I was Lord Kitchener's Valet" ..."

A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, (24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916) was the most famous British Field Marshal of his time, a diplomat, and a statesman. His commands included the Mahdist War (1884-1899), the Second Boer War (1900–1902) and Commander-in-Chief, India (1902–1909). In addition, he was Secretary of State for War, United Kingdom (1914–1916).

I was Lord Kitchener's Valet was a clothing boutique which achieved a period of fame in 1960s Swinging London by promoting antique military uniforms as fashion items.
The original store opened in 1964 at 293 Portobello Road in London's Notting Hill. Due to its great popularity throughout 1966 and 1967 new stores opened on The Kings Road and Carnaby Court off Carnaby Street.
It was a favourite store of Jimi Hendrix who purchased his iconic braided military coat there. Other celebrities that frequented the shops were Eric Clapton, The Beatles and The Who.

Peter Blake who designed The Beatles Sergeant Peppers album cover said that he got the idea while walking past the shop.

The Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth I

"There was the black circling curve of railings to which was tied a repeating series of pale reproductions of the Darnley portrait of Elizabeth Tudor ..."

Incidentally, one of the key images in the novel.

Flora Robson doing Queen Elizabeth

"She had invited Alexander ... to come and hear Flora Robson do Queen Elizabeth at the National Portrait Gallery." (p.9)

Dame Flora Robson (1902-1984)

British actress renowned as one of the great character players of the British theatre and cinema. She played Queen Elizabeth I in The Sea Hawk (1940); but most famously she played the same role in Fire Over England (1937), uttering the lines which are a key part of Elizabethan mythology:

'I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and valour of a King. Aye, and of a King of England too.'

The National Portrait Gallery: 1968

The National Portrait Gallery --

located at 2 St Martin's Place, London

Founded in 1856 as a collection of portraits of notable personalities, the gallery now contains more than 4,500 pictures, drawings, a recently extended collection of photographs and works of sculpture depicting people who have played a leading part in public life in Britain. No portraits are put on display until the person concerned has been dead at least 10 years; only members of the royal family are excepted from this rule. For the most part the portraits are displayed in chronological order, the decoration of the rooms reflecting the particular epoch.