[lit-ideas] Re: Statuesque
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:00:30 -0700
on 9/14/04 8:19 AM, Renee Morel at rmorel@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> Why should this be a reference to an actual statue? It probably only
> alludes to the personification of Patience in Cesare Ripa's _Iconologia_,
> the ultimate Renaissance reference book for allegories, used by both
> painters and writers.
>
> Renee
>
Thanks to JLS for the OED ref.
Let me rephrase the question: if an audience was expected to understand what
"Patience on a monument" looked like, people must have had some image of
Patience in their heads. It doesn't seem sufficient to me to suggest that
there was a reference book for allegories. The common herd, the folk who
stood in the pit, had to know.
The reason the question snagged in my mind is that the
subject--Patience--seems so Victorian, or so Italian. I'm guessing that
Patience meant, for a Shakespearean audience, some kind of Pieta figure, but
I'm now really wondering whether I have understood. An anti-Catholic,
anti-plaster saint reference perhaps?
A reminder of the context:
Duke: What's her history?
Viola: A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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