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Vernacular Books and Their Readers in

the Early Age of Print (c. 1450–1600)


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Edited by
Anna Dlabačová, Andrea van Leerdam
and John J. Thompson

Vernacular Books and Their Readers


in the Early Age of Print
(c. 1450–1600)

Intersections
Interdisciplinary
Studies in Early
Modern Culture

BRILL
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Vernacular Books and Their Readers in the Early Age of Print (c. 1450–1600)

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Intersections
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN CULTURE

General Editor

Karl A.E. Enenkel (Chair of Medieval and Neo-Latin Literature


Universität Münster
e-mail: kenen_01@uni_muenster.de)

Editorial Board

W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden)


W. de Boer (Miami University)
S. Bussels (University of Leiden)
A. Dlabačová (University of Leiden)
Chr. Göttler (University of Bern)
J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen)
W.S. Melion (Emory University)
A. Montoya (Radboud University Nijmegen)
R. Seidel (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
P.J. Smith (University of Leiden)
J. Thompson (Queen’s University Belfast)
A. Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin)
C. Zittel (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice / University of Stuttgart)
C. Zwierlein (Berlin)

volume 85 – 2023

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/inte

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Vernacular Books and Their
Readers in the Early Age of Print
(c. 1450–1600)

Edited by

Anna Dlabačová
Andrea van Leerdam
John J. Thompson

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license,
which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided no alterations are made and the original author(s) and source are credited.
Further information and the complete license text can be found at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources
(indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further
permission from the respective copyright holder.

Cover illustration: Brunschwig Hieronymus, Medicinarius: Das buch der Gesuntheit (Strasbourg:
Johann Grüninger, 1505), fol. A6r. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 2128.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vernacular Books and Reading Experiences in the Early Age of Print
(c. 1450-1600) (Conference) (2021 : Online), author. | Dlabačová, Anna, 1983-
editor. | Leerdam, Andrea van, editor. | Thompson, John J., 1955- editor.
Title: Vernacular books and their readers in the early age of print (c. 1450-1600) /
edited by Anna Dlabačová, Andrea van Leerdam, John J. Thompson.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2023 | Series: Intersections, 1568-1181 ; volume 85 |
Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023025712 (print) | LCCN 2023025713 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004520141
(hardback) | ISBN 9789004520158 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Books and reading—Europe—History—16th century —Congresses. | Books
and reading—Europe—History—To 1500—Congresses. | Books—Europe—History—1450-1600
—Congresses. | Printing —Europe—History—16th century—Congresses. | Printing—Europe—
History —Origin and antecedents—Congresses. | Intermediality—Congresses.
Classification: LCC Z1003.5.E9 V47 2023 (print) | LCC Z1003.5.E9 (ebook) |
DDC 028.09/031—dc23/eng/20230807
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023025712
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023025713

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.

issn 1568-1181
isbn 978-90-04-52014-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-52015-8 (e-book)

Copyright 2023 by Anna Dlabačová, Andrea van Leerdam and John J. Thompson. Published by Koninklijke
Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis,
Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress.
Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii
List of Figures and Tables viii
Notes on the Editors xv
Notes on the Contributors xvi

Introduction 1
Anna Dlabačová and Andrea van Leerdam

Part 1
Real and Imagined Readers

1 Reading Magic in Early Modern Iberia 37


Heather Bamford

2 Vernacular Readers of Medicine: Imagined Audiences and Material


Traces of Reading in Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Distillation Books 59
Tillmann Taape

3 The Hortulus animae – An Archive of Medieval Prayer Book


Literature 91
Stefan Matter

4 Printers’ Strategies and Readers’ Responses: Vernacular Editions of the


Deventer Printers Richard Pafraet and Jacob van Breda 109
Suzan Folkerts

5 Personalizing Universal History: Noblemen’s Responses to the


Polish-Language Chronicle of the Whole World by Marcin Bielski 140
Karolina Mroziewicz

Part 2
Mobility of Texts and Images

6 The Schoolroom in Early English Illustration 173


Martha W. Driver

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vi Contents

7 Moving Pictures: The Art and Craft of Dying Well in the Woodcuts of
Wynkyn de Worde 198
Alexa Sand

8 Catering to Different Tastes: Western-European Romance in the Earliest


Decades of Printing 229
Elisabeth de Bruijn

Part 3
Intermediality

9 Moveable Types of Merry Monsters:


Joyful Literature on Paper and on the Walls 267
Katell Lavéant

10 Pour ce fault morir en vivant: Medieval Humanist Readings of Text and


Images in Pierre Michault’s Danse aux aveugles 296
Margriet Hoogvliet

11 Meditating the Unbearable in a Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish


Manuscript Prayerbook with Printed Images 328
Walter S. Melion

Afterword: Making an End of the Beginnings of Early Printing in


Western Europe 394
John J. Thompson

Index Nominum 407

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Acknowledgments

This volume results from the online conference “Vernacular Books and Reading
Experiences in the Early Age of Print (c. 1450–1600)”, which Anna Dlabačová
and Andrea van Leerdam organized from 25 to 27 August 2021. The confer-
ence idea developed from our shared interest in how reading experiences in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were shaped both by producers and users
of vernacular books. In our respective projects funded by the Dutch Research
Council NWO, we explored this question focusing on Dutch-language books:
Anna’s project “Leaving a Lasting Impression. The Impact of Incunabula on
Late Medieval Spirituality, Religious Practice and Visual Culture in the Low
Countries” (2018–2022, grant number 275-30-036) looked into devotional lit-
erature while Andrea’s project “Woodcuts as Reading Guides: How Images
Shaped Knowledge Transmission in Medical-Astrological Books in Dutch
(1500–1550)” (2016–2022, grant number 322-30-009) investigated practical
instructive literature. The conference and the ensuing volume enabled us to
bring our individually funded NWO-projects a step further through collabora-
tion and comparison, broadening the outlook on a variety of genres and lan-
guages. We are grateful to NWO for covering the Open Access publishing costs
for this volume.
We would like to express our gratitude to the organizations who have pro-
vided practical or financial support for the conference and the publication:
the Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) at Leiden University, the Leids
Universiteits Fonds (LUF), the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht
University, the editorial board of Brill’s Intersections series, and all libraries
and other institutions who have granted us permission to reproduce objects
from their collections. Special thanks to Suzan Boreel for her dedicated assis-
tance in organizing the conference and ensuring that all technical facilities for
the online meeting worked smoothly.
We have benefitted from the ideas and suggestions of many colleagues,
including the conference participants. We are particularly indebted to Ilaria
Andreoli, Wim van Anrooij, Bart Besamusca, Sabrina Corbellini, Irene O’Daly,
Karl Enenkel, Ann-Marie Hansen, Ágnes Máté, Marco Mostert, Martine
Veldhuizen, Geert Warnar, Adriaan van der Weel, Alexander Wilkinson, and
Lydia Zeldenrust.
Last but not least, thank you to little Robin, Livia, and Benjamin for the joyful
and life-changing distraction they have brought us during this joint endeavour.

Anna Dlabačová, Andrea van Leerdam and John J. Thompson


March 2023

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Figures and Tables

Figures

0.1 Title page of Van Marien rosen cransken een suuerlic boexken, with
hand-colouring, pen flourishes and rubrication (Gouda, Gerard Leeu:
9 March 1484), 8º. Leiden, University Library, 1370 G 35 7
0.2 Index of herb names in Latin with Dutch translations, with an entry added
by a reader. Rösslin Eucharius, Den Roseghaert vanden beuruchten Urouwen
(Antwerp, Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten: 1529), 4o, fol. N4v. Allard Pierson –
the Collections of the University of Amsterdam, OTM: Ned. Inc. 125 8
0.3 A man at a lectern with two open books. Woodcut with hand-colouring.
Brunschwig Hieronymus, Medicinarius: Das buch der Gesuntheit (Strasbourg:
Johann Grüninger, 1505), 2o, fol. A6r. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Rar. 2128 12
0.4 Coloured drawing at the start of chapter 4 on the King’s advisors in Dat
Scaecspel (Gouda, Gerard Leeu: 1479), fº. Manchester, John Rylands Library,
17262 24
1.1 Folio from El libro de dichos maravillosos [The Book of Marvelous Sayings],
Biblioteca Tomás Navarro Tomás (CCHS-CSIC) M-CCHS RES RESC/22 40
1.2 External and internal covers of Jaime Manobel’s magic notebook,
Dietario Mágico [Magic Ledger] (1590), Archivo Nacional Histórico,
INQUISICIÓN, MPD.442 52
2.1 A man wearing stripes, and students listening to a medical lecture. Woodcut.
Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de Arte Distillandi de Compositis (Strasbourg,
Johann Grüninger: 1512), fol. B1r. London, Wellcome Library, EPB/D/1114 67
2.2 Printed alphabetical index with handwritten notes and corrections.
Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de Arte Distillandi de Compositis (Strasbourg,
Johann Grüninger: 1512), fol. 18r. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Rar. 2166 79
2.3 ‘A general list of what is contained in this book, with indication of the
folio’. Handwritten customised index on pre-bound flyleaf in Hieronymus
Brunschwig, Liber de Arte Distillandi de Compositis (Strasbourg, Johann
Grüninger: 1519). Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Res/2 M.med. 38 80
3.1 Hortulus animae [Der Wurtzgarten] (Strasbourg, Johann Grüninger:
4 March 1501), 8º. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Inc. 766 [FF links VI 13],
fol. [unpag.]/B1r 99
3.2 Hortulus animae [Der Wurtzgarten] (Strasbourg, Johann Grüninger:
4 March 1501), 8º. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Inc. 766 [FF links VI 13],
fols. J2v–J3r 100

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Figures and Tables ix

3.3 Hortulus animae [Der Wurtzgarten] (Strasbourg, Johann Grüninger:


4 March 1501), 8º. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Inc. 766 [FF links VI 13],
fols. E3v–E4r 101
3.4 Hortulus animae [Der Wurtzgarten] (Strasbourg, Johann Grüninger:
4 March 1501), 8º. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Inc. 766 [FF links VI 13],
fol. L4v–L5r 104
4.1 Incipit of Epistles and Gospels with blue painted initial and red decorations.
Hier beghinne[n] alle die epistolen en[de] ewangelien […] (Deventer,
Jacob van Breda: 1 March 1496). Deventer, Athenaeumbibliotheek, 101 N 45 KL,
fol. 2r (a2r) 119
4.2 Title page of Epistles and Gospels with name ihs and symbols of four evange-
lists. Woodcut illustration, 1493. Hier beghinnen alle die epistolen en[de] euange-
lien […] (Deventer, Jacob van Breda: 1 March 1493). The Hague, KB, National
Library of the Netherlands, KW 171 G 27, fol. 1r (a1r) 124
4.3 The Baptism of Christ. Woodcut by Master of Jacob Bellaert, before 1486.
Hier beghinne[n] alle die epistolen en[de] ewangelien […] (Deventer, Jacob
van Breda: 1 March 1496). Deventer, Athenaeumbibliotheek, 101 N 45 KL,
fol. 27v 126
4.4 The Boy Jesus in the Temple. Woodcut by Master of Jacob Bellaert, before
1486. Hier beghinne[n] alle die epistolen en[de] ewangelien […] (Deventer,
Jacob van Breda: 1 March 1496). Deventer, Athenaeumbibliotheek, 101 N 45 KL,
fol. 28r 130
5.1 Anonymous woodcut depicting Marcin Bielski. Kronika wssythyego swyata
(Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg: 1554). Warsaw, University Library (BUW),
SD 612.223, unnumbered page. Public domain 154
5.2 Obliterated text narrating the legend about popess Joan and her likeness.
Marcin Bielski, Kronika wssythyego swyata (Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg:
1554). Warsaw, National Library (BN), XVI.F.109, fol. 155v 156
5.3 Annotated image of the inhabitants of the New World. Woodcut. Marcin
Bielski, Kronika wssythyego swyata (Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg: 1554).
Warsaw, BN, XVI.F.33, fol. 308r. Public domain 158
5.4 Hand-coloured scene of the Last Judgment.Woodcut. Marcin Bielski, Kronika
wssythyego swyata (Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg: 1554). Warsaw, BN, XVI.F.109,
fol. 124r 160
5.5 Hand-drawn landscape added to the illustrations depicting the Hanging of the
kings of the Amorites. Woodcut. Marcin Bielski, Kronika wssythyego swyata
(Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg: 1554). Warsaw, BN, XVI.F.33, fol. 42v. Public
domain 161
5.6 Likenesses of Martin Luther with hand-written comment. Woodcut. Marcin
Bielski, Kronika wssythyego swyata (Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg: 1554).
Warsaw, BUW, SD 612.220, fol. 172r 162

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x Figures and Tables

5.7 Portrait of Martin Luther, after Lucas Cranach the Younger, with hand-drawn
demon. Woodcut. Marcin Bielski, Kronika tho iesth Historya swiata (Cracow,
Mateusz Siebeneicher: 1564). Cracow, BJ, Cim. 8174, fol. 193v 163
5.8 Page of the chronicle from which the portrait of Martin Luther was cut
out. Marcin Bielski, Kronika tho iesth Historya swiata (Cracow, Mateusz
Siebeneicher: 1564). Warsaw, BUW 612.226, fol. 193v 164
5.9 Crispin Scharffenberg, St. Peter. Woodcut. Marcin Bielski, Kronika
wssythyego swyata (Cracow, Hieronim Szarfenberg: 1554). Warsaw, BN,
XVI.F.109, fol. 129v 166
5.10 Crispin Scharffenberg, St. Peter. Woodcut. Marcin Bielski, Kronika tho iesth
Historya swiata (Cracow, Mateusz Siebeneicher: 1564). Warsaw, BN, XVI.F.15,
fol. 142r. Public domain 167
6.1 John Lydgate, Here begynneth the chorle & the byrde (Westminster, ‘In Caxtons
house by Wynken de worde’: 1497), STC 17011 174
6.2 Hours of Catherine of Cleves. Utrecht, the Netherlands, ca. 1440. New York,
Morgan Library & Museum, M.917/945, M.917, p. 62 177
6.3 Johannes Sulpitius, Sulpitii Verulani oratoris prestantissimi opus insigne gram-
maticum feliciter incipit (London, Richard Pynson: 1498), STC 23426 179
6.4 Geoffrey Chaucer, Here begynneth the boke of Troylus and Creseyde (London,
Richard Pynson: ca. 1526), STC 5096. Harvard University, Houghton Library,
HEW 5.11.8, title page 187
6.5 Geoffrey Chaucer, The noble and amerous auncyent history of Troylus and
Cresyde (London, Wynkyn de Worde: 1517), STC 5095 189
6.6 John Holt, Lac puerorum, or mylke for chyldren (London, Wynkyn de Worde:
1508), STC 13604 190
6.7 John Lydgate, Here begynneth the chorle and the byrde (London, Wynkyn
de Worde: 1510), STC 17012. Cambridge, University Library, Sel.5.23,
title page 193
7.1 Impatience. Woodcut illustration, ca. 1496. From Guillaume Tardif, L’art de bien
mourir et de bien vivre (Paris, Antoine Vérard: 1496), fol. ciir. Paris, Bibliothèque
nationale de France, RES-D-852 206
7.2 Impatience. Woodcut illustration, ca. 1496. From Thomas Lewington, The art
of good lywyng [and] good deyng (Paris, Antoine Vérard: 1503), fol. q1r. Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, RLR-D-1299 207
7.3 Impatience. Woodcut illustration, ca. 1505. From Andrew Chertsey, The crafte
to lyue well and to dye well (London, Wynkyn de Worde: 1505), fol. lvir. London,
British Library, C132. H40 212
7.4 Impatience. Woodcut illustration, ca. 1505. From Thordynary of crysten men
(London, Wynkyn de Worde: 1506), unpaginated (image 75 of 221 in EEBO).
London, British Library, 224.G.3 220

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Figures and Tables xi

8.1 Transmission of romances per language 236


8.2 Transmission of Melusine up to ca. 1550 237
8.3 Transmission of Ponthus et Sidoine up to ca. 1550 239
8.4 Opening page of Ponthus und Sidonia (Augsburg, Johann Schönsperger:
1483). London, BL, IB.6275 241
8.5 Transmission of Pierre de Provence up to ca. 1550 242
8.6 Johann II of Simmern, Haymonskinder (Simmern, Hieronymus Rodler: 1535).
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 2299 249
8.7 Nicolás de Piamonte, La Historia del Emperador Carlo Magno (Sevilla, Jacobo
Cromberger: 1525). Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, R/12097 250
8.8 Johann II of Simmern, Fierrabras (Simmern, Hieronymus Rodler: 1533).
Frankfurt am Main, Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg,
Ausst. 240 Nr. 1 251
9.1 Chicheface, woodcut illustration and printed paper, 37.6 × 23.6 cm (Paris,
Guy Marchant: ca. 1495), Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek 271
9.2 Bigorne qui menge tous les hommes […], woodcut illustration and printed
paper, 1.89 × 1.35 cm (s.l. [Lyon], s.n.: s.d. [1537?]) 273
9.3 Zwey Wunderthier so erst newlich ins Teütschland gebracht sind wor-
den […], 39.6 × 28.7 cm (Augsburg, Hans Schultes the Elder: 1586), Zurich,
Zentralbibliothek 276
9.4 Histoire facecieuse de la Bigorne […], 51 × 38 cm (Paris, for Simon Graffart:
[ca. 1600]), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. © BnF 278
9.5 Histoire facecieuse de la Bigorne […], 33.2 × 44.3 cm (Lyon, Leonard Odet:
[ca. 1600]), Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek. © Herzog August
Bibliothek 279
9.6 Fill Gut and Pich Belly […], 35.8 × 47.9 cm (London, Edward Allde: 1620),
London, Society of Antiquaries 282
9.7 Bigorne en Scherminckel (s.l. [Amsterdam], Hugo Allard: s.d.), 38.9 × 51 cm
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum 283
9.8–9.9 Bigorne and Chicheface (wall paintings, Villeneuve-Lembron, s.n.: s.d.
[ca. 1500]) 288
10.1 The dance of Cupid, manuscript painting, third quarter of the 15th century.
Pierre Michault, La danse aux aveugles. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, MS fr. 1989, fol. 7r 302
10.2 The dance of Cupid, manuscript painting, 1475–1480. Pierre Michault,
La danse aux aveugles. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1654,
fol. 153r 309
10.3 Opening miniature: Sleeping Acteur with Entendement; the three dances,
manuscript painting, late 15th–early 16th century. Pierre Michault, La danse
aux aveugles. Geneva, Bibliothèque de Genève, MS 182, fol. 198r 311

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xii Figures and Tables

10.4 The beginning of the discussion between Acteur and Entendement about the
remedies against the dances, manuscript painting, third quarter of the 15th cen-
tury. Pierre Michault, La danse aux aveugles. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, MS fr. 1696, fol. 28r 312
10.5 Opening woodcut: Acteur with scroll. Pierre Michault, La danse des aveugles
(Lyon, [Guillaume Le Roy]: [ca. 1487–1488]). Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de
France, RES YE-277, n.p. 313
10.6 The dance of Lady Atropos, woodcut. Pierre Michault, La danse des aveu-
gles ([Bréhan-Loudéac, Robin Fouquet and Jean Crès: about 1485]), Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, RES P-YE-230, n.p. 315
10.7 Top: Trinity, Mary, symbols of the Evangelists. Starting upper left: John the
Baptist, soul (of Laura?), John the Evangelist, Petrarch’s Triumphs of Fame,
Eternity, Time, Love, Chastity, Death, Pierre Girardin (donor), the Virgin of the
Immaculate Conception, Jehanne Le Clerc (donor). Stained glass, 1502. Church
of Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens, Ervy-le-Châtel, France 317
11.1 Articles 41 and 42 of the Hondert articulen der passien Iesu Christi and Israhel
van Meckenem, Flagellation of Christ, from the Große Passion, ca. 1480.
Engraving. Groenendaal Passion, fols. 23v and 24r. Album: late fifteenth cen-
tury; each folio ca. 260 × 204 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 329
11.2 Cologne School, Saint Jerome Kneeling in Penitence before the Crucifix,
ca. 1470–1480. Metalcut, hand-coloured in green, yellow, brown, orange,
gold, and red lake, 255 × 179 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 369
11.3 Netherlandish School, Christ the Man of Sorrows, ca. 1490–1500. Woodcut,
hand-coloured in green, two shades of brown, flesh colour, yellow, black, and
touches of red lake, 257 × 170 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 370
11.4 Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet and the Departure of
Judas, with the Agony in the Garden and the Last Supper, from the Große Passion,
ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 371
11.5 Israhel van Meckenem, Betrayal and Capture of Christ, from the Große Passion,
ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 372
11.6 Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Brought before Annas, with Denial of Peter and
Mocking of Christ, from the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 373
11.7 Israhel van Meckenem, Flagellation of Christ in the Presence of Pilate, with Christ
Brought before Herod, from the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, highlighted

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Figures and Tables xiii

in gold, with touches of pen and red ink (on Christ’s feet), ca. 205 × 151 mm.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 374
11.8 Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Crowned with Thorns, with Mocking of Christ, from
the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, highlighted in gold, ca. 205 × 151 mm.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 375
11.9 Israhel van Meckenem, Ecce Homo, with Pilate and his Wife, from the Große
Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 2003.476 376
11.10 Israhel van Meckenem, Pilate Washing his Hands, with Workmen Building the
Cross and Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver, from the Große Passion,
ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 377
11.11 Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Carrying the Cross, with Mary, John, and the
Holy Women in the Distance, from the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving,
ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 378
11.12 Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Awaiting Crucifixion, with the Crucifixion in the
Distance, from the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 379
11.13 Israhel van Meckenem, Pietà and Lamentation over the Body of Christ, with
the Deposition in the Distance, from the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving,
ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 380
11.14 Israhel van Meckenem, Resurrection, with Christ Breaking the Doors of Hell,
from the Große Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 381
11.15 Israhel van Meckenem, Supper at Emmaus, with Christ and the Two Disciples on
the Way to Emmaus and Christ and the Magdalene in the Garden, from the Große
Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 × 151 mm. New York, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 2003.476 382
11.16 Verso of sheet with Christ Crowned with Thorns. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 26v.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 383
11.17 Verso of sheet with Christ Carrying the Cross. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 32v.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 384
11.18 “Vanden hoechsten ende den alder costelijcsten scat ons heren ihesu christi der
doecht des lijdsamheit”. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 6r. New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 2003.476 385
11.19 Articles 26, 27, and 28 from Hondert Articulen, with marginal notations.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 21v. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2003.476 386
11.20 “Sit michi consolatio” and “Nunc et in agone[.] Amen”. Groenendaal Passion,
fol. 40r. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476 387

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xiv Figures and Tables

Tables

7.1 The block book Ars moriendi cycle 202


7.2 Comparison of Vérard and de Worde editions 208
7.3 Redeployment of Ars moriendi cycle of woodcuts in editions by Vérard and
de Worde 209
Appendix (to Ch. 9): Table of Editions Cited in the Article 291

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Notes on the Editors

Anna Dlabačová
is Associate Professor at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society
(LUCAS) where she teaches in the MA program Book and Digital Media Studies.
Her research focuses on the late medieval Low Countries and her research
interests include spiritual literature, prayer culture, the transmission of texts,
and the role of the earliest printed books in the dissemination of texts and
images and in shaping readers’ experiences. She is the PI of the ERC-funded
Starting Grant project ‘Pages of Prayer: The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer
Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380–1550’ (2023–2028).

Andrea van Leerdam


is a book historian with a particular interest in the materiality of early printed
books, early modern reading practices, and visual culture. As of September
2023, she is curator of printed books in the special collections at Utrecht Uni-
versity Library. She obtained her PhD at the same university in 2022, where
she had previously worked for ten years as a humanities communications
advisor and where she continued as a postdoctoral researcher in a digital
humanities project on early modern popular print culture. A revised version
of her dissertation Woodcuts as Reading Guides: How Images Shaped Knowl-
edge Transmission in Medical-Astrological Books in Dutch (1500–1550) is set to
be published in 2023.

John J. Thompson
is Professor emeritus at Queen’s University, Belfast, Honorary Senior Research
Fellow at the University of Glasgow and a member of the Intersections edi-
torial board. He has written widely on literary and codicological aspects of
late medieval and early modern English book history. His work ranges from
book-length studies of the Middle English Cursor Mundi to many shorter
essays. It also includes two large-scale collaborative scholarly projects funded
by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council that focus on important
transitional moments in pre- and post-Reformation English textual cultures.

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Notes on the Contributors

Heather Bamford
is an Associate Professor of Spanish at The George Washington University.
Her research interests include multi-confessional medieval Iberia, the his-
tory of reading, and magic. Her first book, Cultures of the Fragment: Uses of
the Iberian Manuscript, 1100–1600 (University of Toronto Press, 2018), places
fragments at the center of reading and non-reading aspects of medieval and
sixteenth-century use of manuscripts. The book challenges the notion that
fragments came about accidentally, arguing that most fragments were created
on purpose, as a result of a wide range of practical, intellectual and spiritual
uses of manuscript material. MLA Medieval Iberian awarded Cultures of the
Fragment the 2020 La corónica book award for the outstanding monograph
published in the field of hispano-medieval studies. Bamford’s current project
is tentatively titled Unprinted: Reading and Meaning in Early Modern Spain.
It examines not only the meaning of reading, but also the meaning of meaning
in a range of manuscript texts in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain,
including personal notebooks, magic texts, forgeries, religious works, and lit-
erature that circulated among Christians and religious minorities.

Elisabeth de Bruijn
is research fellow in the Department of Dutch studies at the University of
Antwerp. Her research focuses on medieval and early modern chivalric
romances from a cross-language perspective. She is also affiliated with the
department of German philology at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Together
with Bernd Bastert, she is preparing an edition of the Middle Low German Flos
unde Blankeflos.

Martha W. Driver
is Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Pace
University in New York City. A co-founder of the Early Book Society for the
study of manuscripts and printing history, she writes about illustration from
manuscript to print, the early history of publishing, and manuscript and book
production. In addition to publishing several books and some eighty articles
in these areas, she has edited twenty-eight journals over twenty-five years. Her
books include John Gower in Manuscript and Early Printed Books, edited with
Derek Pearsall and Robert F. Yeager (2020), Preaching the Word in Manuscript
and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan Powell, edited
with Veronica O’Mara (2013), Fascicle Four, New York City, Columbia University –

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Notes on the Contributors xvii

Union Theological. Images in English Manuscripts from the time of Chaucer to


Henry VIII, c. 1380–c. 1509, with Michael Orr (2007), and The Image in Print:
Book Illustration in Late Medieval England (2004), among others.

Suzan Folkerts
is curator of manuscripts and early printed books at the Athenaeumbibliotheek
(Athenaeum Library) Deventer. Previously she was a postdoctoral researcher
and lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen. Her latest
research project was ‘From monastery to marketplace. Towards a new history of
New Testament translations and urban religious culture in the Low Countries
(c. 1450–1540)’, funded by a Veni grant of NWO (2013–2017). In 2021 she pub-
lished Religious Connectivity in Urban Communities. Reading, Worshipping,
and Connecting through the Continuum of Sacred and Secular (1400–1550) with
Brepols in the new series ‘New Communities of Interpretation’.

Margriet Hoogvliet
earned her PhD ‘cum laude’ in 1999 with the thesis Pictura et Scriptura; a study
of text-image relations in maps of the world from the twelfth to the early sev-
enteenth century (published in 2007 in the Brepols series Terrarum Orbis).
Alternating with several teaching and research positions with the universities
of Groningen, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Paris Sorbonne/EPHE, and Leeds, she has
worked since 2009 as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen.
In the academic year 2019–2020 Margriet was a Fellow in the Smart Loire
Valley Program (Marie Curie) at le Studium Centre for Advanced Studies in
Orléans and Tours. She has published frequently and widely on the biblical and
religious reading cultures of laypeople living and working in the towns of late
medieval France and the advanced religious participation of middle-class and
poor laypeople. Her research is oriented towards social aspects of the reception
of texts and images, in books, prints, wall paintings, tapestries, and pageants.

Katell Lavéant
(PhD) is Curator of Printed Collections at Allard Pierson, University of Amster-
dam (NL) and affiliated researcher at Centre Gabriel Naudé (Lyon, ENSSIB).
An associate professor at Utrecht University until 2023, she developed sev-
eral research projects on French Renaissance festive culture with grants from
the Dutch Research Council, for which she was also awarded the Huygens–
Descartes Prize in 2018. Her focus lies on leisure books inspired by joyful cul-
ture, their production, and their reception in early modern France, as well as
their survival in modern libraries.

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xviii Notes on the Contributors

Stefan Matter
studied German, History and History of Art at the University of Fribourg in
Switzerland. He wrote his doctorate (2006) on the relationship between text
and image production in the Early Nazarenes and subsequently wrote his
habilitation (2011) on dialogues and images of minne. Between 2017 and 2021 he
has led the SNF-funded research project Deutschsprachige Gebetbuchliteratur
des Mittelalters. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Überlieferung, Form und Funktion,
and has worked at the University Library of Berne since 2022. His publica-
tions include (with Maria-Christina Boerner) … kann ich vielleicht nur dich-
tend mahlen? Franz Pforrs Fragment eines Künstlerromans und das Verhältnis
von Poesie und Malerei bei den Nazarenern (2007) and Reden von der Minne.
Untersuchungen zu Spielformen literarischer Bildung zwischen verbaler und
visueller Vergegenwärtigung anhand von Minnereden und Minnebildern des
deutschsprachigen Spätmittelalters (2013).

Walter S. Melion
is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Art History at Emory University in Atlanta,
where he directs the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (Emory’s institute for
advanced study in the humanities). He is author of four monographs and over
eighty articles, co-author of two exhibition catalogues, and editor or co-editor
of more than twenty volumes. Newly published is his open-access digital edi-
tion Karel van Mander’s Foundation of the Noble, Free Art of Painting. He is series
editor of Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, and Lund
Humphries’s Northern Lights. He was elected Foreign Member of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010, and was Chaire Francqui at
the Université Catholique de Louvain in 2014–2015. Melion is president emeri-
tus of the Sixteenth Century Society and current president of the Historians
of Netherlandish Art. His current projects include a digital, open-access edi-
tion of the exhibition catalogue Through a Glass, Darkly: Allegory and Faith in
Netherlandish Prints from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt and a monograph
on 16th- and 17th-century Netherlandish manuscript prayerbooks organized
around printed images (2024).

Karolina Mroziewicz
is a philologist and art historian. In 2015 she received her PhD in cultural stud-
ies from the Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw. Currently she is
an assistant professor at the Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw. Her
fields of study encompass reception of early modern printed books and illus-
trations, colour and coloured prints in the Polish Kingdom and Grand Duchy

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Notes on the Contributors xix

of Lithuania, reception of classical culture in Central Europe and the polemi-


cal and identity-building role of images in the early modern era. Her publi-
cations include Imprinting Identities: Illustrated Latin-Language Histories of
St. Stephen’s Kingdom (1488–1700) (2015) and the collective volume Premodern
Rulership and Contemporary Political Power: The King’s Body Never Dies (2017),
edited by Karolina Mroziewicz and Aleksander Sroczyński.

Alexa Sand
is Professor of Art History and Associate Vice President for Research at Utah
State University, where she has taught since 2004. Her research centres on
text-image relationships in books from the late twelfth through the fifteenth
century, particularly in France and the francophone regions of Europe. Her
monograph, Vision, Devotion, and Self-Representation in Late Medieval Art
(2014) traces the emergence of the devotional portraits of book owners that
became characteristic of books of hours towards the end of the Middle Ages in
relation to practices of prayer, devotional reading, and meditation. Her recent
work focuses on the illustrated manuscripts and early printed editions of
La Somme le roi, a moral treatise composed in French in 1279.

Tillmann Taape
is a historian of science and medicine exploring the intersection of artisanal,
alchemical, and learned traditions of knowledge in early modern Europe.
Having obtained his PhD from Cambridge University, he has held research and
teaching positions at Columbia University, the Huntington Library, and the
Warburg Institute. He is currently a fellow at the Herzog August Bibliothek
Wolfenbüttel.

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Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Yale Literary
Magazine (Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 3, December 1922)
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
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eBook.

Title: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 3,


December 1922)

Author: Various

Release date: May 8, 2022 [eBook #68021]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Herrick & Noyes

Credits: hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
images made available by the HathiTrust Digital
Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE


LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 3, DECEMBER 1922)
***
Vol. LXXXVIII No. 3

The
Yale Literary Magazine
Conducted by the
Students of Yale University.

“Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses


Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”

December, 1922.
New Haven: Published by the Editors.
Printed at the Van Dyck Press, 121-123 Olive St., New Haven.

Price: Thirty-five Cents.


Entered as second-class matter at the New Haven Post Office.

THE YALE
LITERARY MAGAZINE
has the following amount of trade at a 10% discount with these
places:

ALEXANDER—Suits $32.00
CHASE—Men’s Furnishings 30.00
GAMER—Tailors 32.00
KLEINER—Tailors 32.00
KIRBY—Jewelers 63.00
KNOX-RAY—Silverware 30.00
PACH—Photographers 24.00
PALLMAN—Kodaks 32.00
ROGER SHERMAN—Photographers 63.00
YALE CO-OP. 63.00
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS—Books 125.00

If you want any of this drop a card to the Business Manager,


Yale Station, and a trade slip will be returned on the same day.

ESTABLISHED 1818
MADISON AVENUE COR. FORTY-FOURTH STREET NEW
YORK
Telephone Murray Hill 8800
Useful Christmas Gifts for Men and Boys
are listed alphabetically and priced in our Booklet “Christmas
Suggestions” which we shall be pleased to send on request
One of our Gift Certificates is suggested as a solution of the
question of what to give the man for whom it is difficult to make a
selection
BOSTON
Tremont cor. Boylston
NEWPORT
220 Bellevue Avenue

THE YALE CO-OP.


A Story of Progress
At the close of the fiscal year, July, 1921, the total membership
was 1187.
For the same period ending July, 1922, the membership was
1696.
On October 5th, 1922, or one week after the opening of college
the membership was 1752, and men are still joining.
Why stay out when a membership will save you manifold times
the cost of the fee.
THE YALE LITERARY
MAGAZINE

Contents
DECEMBER, 1922

Leader F. O. Matthiessen 75
Poems Russell W. Davenport 79
Five Sonnets Maxwell E. Foster 94
Dagonet Herbert W. Hartman, Jr. 97
The Dark Priest K. A. Campbell 98
Poem R. C. Bates 99
Sonnet Winfield Shiras 100
Book Reviews 101
Editor’s Babel 106
The Yale Literary Magazine

Vol. LXXXVIII DECEMBER, 1922 No. 3

EDITORS

MAXWELL EVARTS FOSTER


RUSSELL WHEELER DAVENPORT WINFIELD SHIRAS
ROBERT CHAPMAN BATES FRANCIS OTTO MATTHIESSEN

BUSINESS MANAGERS

CHARLES EVANDER SCHLEY HORACE JEREMIAH VOORHIS


Leader
Here at Yale we are inclined to take things rather too much for
granted. We talk glibly of our traditions as something everlasting,
and forget that most of them originated in the vague limbo of
eighteen-ninety. We unconsciously consider the College of to-day to
be the same as our fathers knew, and so it is astonishing to find in
the musty pages of an old Lit. an account of “the more splendid
entrances of Durfee, a building which is certainly ornamental and
whose rooms are spacious and elegant”.
For, in general, we have accepted our surroundings as a
permanent matter of fact, and have not stopped to analyze just why
they are as they are. Most of us hardly know the reason for our being
here at all. In our four years we are continually passing through a
series of changes—παντα ρει—everything is in a state of flux. Our
ideas and ideals, our opinions and our minds are ever changing,
developing, broadening. The Senior is the Freshman only in that he
is the unifying body in which during the four-year span these many
shifting thoughts have been welded together, and the instant has in
truth been made eternity. For the Freshman is too engrossed with
the business of becoming acclimatized, heeling some publication or
other activity, and making friends to have much time for anything
else. Towards the close of the spring term he looks forward to
Sophomore year with a certain relish. Then is when he will do all that
reading and extra study, that plain living and high thinking, which he
has planned. But, curiously enough, Sophomore year brings with it
new and unforeseen petty distractions which devour the time at an
incredible rate, and leave no more room for contemplation than the
year previous.
And so with the last half of the cycle: the two final years swing by
confusedly and bring us to the precipice of graduation, a charm or
two on our watch chain, a smattering of knowledge which we may or
may not find comforting, nothing more.
Our development has been somewhat of a hand to mouth affair.
We have learned certain unrelated facts about this and that, and
have sketchily attempted to piece them together. But ordinarily they
have not fitted, because we have not devoted enough sheer
intellectual effort to the analysis of our own ideas. We have not the
slightest conception of what we believe. We may have learned to
think with reasonable clarity, and our ideals may be rather high, but
we have built up no scheme of life, nothing by which to live. Any
philosophy or creed which we may possess is, at best, vague,
inchoate, and fragmentary.
This, as I have said, is because we have never searched our souls
with the cold, relentless light of reason in an attempt to understand
every fiber of our make-up, we have taken things for granted, we
have known only our exteriors, we have not known ourselves.
And living thus almost entirely on the surface, we have inevitably
grown to think of a philosophy of life as hardly an essential. “What
need have I for all this truck about religion?”, we ask frankly, for we
have not yet been brought face to face with the Truth that in order to
realize our highest possibilities we must be utterly dominated by an
ideal. We wish to move the world, but we have not yet been
impressed with the necessity of having a place to stand. We have
not been convinced that we must believe in something.
The whole question has seemed to be something ethereal,
something far removed from our own natural lives. Consequently we
have been inclined to think of religion as little else but repression and
that its followers knew nothing either of happiness or of life. They
seemed to belong to a world apart—to a world that was drab and
unreal.
So Christianity has become the most forbidding word in the
language. Judging it by its present fruits—by a decadent church and
by sweaty Y.M.C.A. gymnasiums—we have pronounced it to be
woefully lacking. We have not seen that these are in reality not fruits
at all, but abortions, that although the church in its present form has
outlived its usefulness, the spirit which exists in each one of us is as
dominating now as it ever was, if only we will open our hearts to it.
We have never stopped to think these questions through to their
conclusion. We take untruths and half-truths for granted, and allow
misconceptions to pass current without ever a sincere effort to get at
the eternal strength of things.
And so we hear men talk of humility, and we laugh at them. We
wish to assert ourselves, to express our own individuality, and being
humble seems to convey the very opposite. We look upon it as
something synonymous with servility, as a state of grovelling self-
abasement in which a man must sacrifice both his personality and
his self-respect.
We hear men talk of brotherly love and it seems to us a farce. How
could anybody pretend to care for everyone equally, to put his
closest friend and the man in the street in the same class? What
could be more unnatural, more hypocritical?
And again we hear men talk of self-surrender and we hate them
for it. Why should I surrender myself? I am I. I possess my ideas and
ideals, and these are enough. Why should I not strive to realize them
without any external aid, any “something not myself”?
Thus we argue and thus we feel because we are repelled by
words whose meaning we do not really understand. Our minds have
never pried deeply enough to find the Truth that humility is nothing
mean, nothing subservient, but rather the natural consciousness of
reverence before everything beautiful and sacred in the universe.
We have thought the ideal of brotherly love to be futile because we
have looked upon it only superficially. We have not realized that
instead of a mere question of surface like or dislike, it involves a
tremendous tolerance and sympathy with all of mankind, and that
although difficult, if not impossible, to attain in its fulness, it certainly
is the antithesis of hypocritical. We have loathed the very sound of
self-surrender because we have taken the word in its cold and literal
sense, and have not understood that instead of sacrificing any trace
of individuality in giving ourselves up to the spiritual and the ideal, we
find instead a new fulness and depth to life. For self-surrender is
actually a self-realization more compelling than our brightest dreams.
F. O. MATTHIESSEN.
Poems
I.

Sometimes you are younger than the dawn;


But sometimes you are older than the stars.
Your eyes are made that way: new light is drawn
From the piled gold where ancient suns have gone,
When your gaze reaches mine. Immersed in wars,
I seek rebellion, fearing to rebel;
And sigh, not yet desirous of relief;
And grieve, not yet relinquishing my grief;
And love the more—I who have loved so well.

II.

I love you. But it is a sorry task


To probe the depths of why or how I love.
We lovers are more fools the more we ask
What lurks behind our kisses, what the mask
Of rotting flesh conceals. Surely I love.
Surely? Great heaven, who would tell the moon
That she’s the light when she herself is cold?
Without your love mine would be growing old;
Without your eyes, mine would be ashes soon.

III.

Ashes? Yet there is something infinite


About an ash—hoary and cold and wise.
Across the spent fires of the night they flit,
And often when the day grows pale, they sit,
Like monarchs, on a vanished enterprise.
Ah, even thus my young love would endure!
Without her light the moon would still express
Her strength, in shadows not yet bodiless—
Hoary and cold and wise: thus am I sure.

IV.

I have addressed you with love’s first address:


I’ve sealed the envelope with all my soul.
Each day you add one burden to distress:
Your silence! Ah, what icy ghosts caress
Expectant hearts when women are the goal—
What undreamt women do we hope to see
When gazing like tired children heavenward!
We say: God help us if our souls are barred
From the white arches of infinity.

V.

Strange that your silence is so deafening


And your unwritten page so full of thought!
Each time they do not come your letters bring
A chaos of conjecture, gathering
Its forces like mad winds, ’till I am caught—
And swept—and swept into an agony.
Ah, ruinous silence that awakes such stress!
The noisy thunders of my heart suppress
The frail, pale music of my memory.

VI.

How long! How long, great God, must I regret


Fleshly communions with the scattered ghosts
Whom in the by-ways of the past I met,
And whom I am desirous to forget,
Lest at their feasts they shout aloud old toasts
And grin with laughter that is desolate?
For then the crimson tinge would cross your cheek—
A tragic color—and your heart would seek
Mutely for spring, though shorn of leaves by Fate.

VII.

Winter! It is not winter when the snows


Whiten the houses and the bare brown trees.
It is not winter when the north wind blows,
Nor yet when mountain lakes are glazed, and floes
On the horizons of the Arctic freeze.
There is no winter if the heart is warm!—
And I would ask you to remember it.
My dear, when you are silent, I must sit
Frozen among the figures of the storm.

VIII.

What do I mean by such queer similes?


O heart beloved, I mean to show you how
The red autumnal stretches of the trees
In crystal twilight, ere the black ponds freeze,
Would but reflect your stillness, were I now
To tell you things a man’s life most conceals:
And next to say that what the autumn is
To you, winter would be to me. And this
Seems all that any simile reveals.

IX.

When marble wears the touch of Grecian hands,


Or Leonardo’s paints on canvas live,
I think the gods are building on the sands
Castles of stone, but no one understands
How much they can inspire one heart to give:
Though I who dream about your untouched hair
Can follow Leonardo’s rapid brush,
And with it paint those yearning strokes, and crush
Beneath a large ideal, life’s strong despair.
X.

Dante was more than half of Beatrice!


Thus for a woman’s warm identity
We men go asking where our heaven is,
And having found it, for that woman’s kiss
We build the altars and the destiny.
O Beatrice! How much we would forget,
If Dante had forgotten what to write!
The Silence and the Distance and the Night—
These he erased—and we remember yet!

XI.

But more than half of Dante was her frame—


So fragile and so exquisite that rime
Could but produce the soundings of her name,
And leave all cold the radiance, the flame
Which from her gaze swept Dante out of time.
Oh, say not that a woman ever dies
When Dante loves her! Yet when Dante loves,
His soul becomes the body that he loves:
A woman will not have it otherwise.

XII.

If Beauty can be kind I know it not,


Because you have not touched me with your lips,
Nor yielded with your eyes. It is my lot
To sit, an outcast on some barren spot,
And watch the summer clouds, like treasure-ships,
Sailing beyond me toward the evening.
The beauty there is infinite, is blue!—
But pitiless as effigies of you,
And bitter with remembrance of the spring.

XIII.
I am a madman in the wilderness:
The gods of anger have bestirred my pen.
Where is your magic now? Or your caress?
The pressure of your arms, your tenderness?
I’ll tear myself away from these, since men
Are not as angels are—eternally.
Damnation!—ah, but hush—see, my wild hands!
If pity be the food my heart demands,
Then for the love of heaven pity me.

XIV.

Or do not pity me. Love is too great


For kindly words and sighs and handkerchiefs.
Your eyes will be my stars, your arms my fate,
And I shall wait for these, although I wait
Until the ship goes shattering on reefs
Which lurk beyond horizons sailed in vain.
Then let the ocean froth, let tempests rave;
Let the straight masts bow stiffly to their grave;
Let the old love go—go—nor come again!

XV.

My lady condescends! A little note


Written, upon my soul, in hat and glove,
Leaves everything unsaid: and what she wrote
Would strangle the young cupid by the throat,
If he were not immortal. I may love,
And she—is glad to have it so. Ah me!
How fine a woman draws the thread of hair
Which holds her lover dangling in the air,
Suspended above all eternity.
RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.
Five Sonnets
1.

My friends will have it that I might have been


A lover, and not thus have loved in vain,
Had I had strength enough to kill the rain
That showered on the April of our scene.
And art to be impassioned and serene,
And worn the guise of Abel, being Cain,
Worshipping in a mild bucolic vein
The blinding fire of the cold eyes of my queen.

And calmly in their quiet judicial way,


They tell me that the pictures I have drawn
Of you are fantasies of my poor brain,
And when, if ever, we shall meet again
You will not be a person of the dawn,
Or Love, herself, uprising from the spray.

2.

But I can laugh with them at their good jokes,


Knowing they are not serious, and reply
That heaven is something less than a wild sky,
And love only a pretty, human hoax.
Do I not see what all their laughter cloaks,
And know that really they would gladly die,
Rather than idly pass your beauty by,
Which all the dreaming of their hearts invokes.

They are ingenious fellows and will play,


But in the elements they are the same

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