<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Some thoughts: </div><div><br></div><div>The first part of the allusion seems a likely callback to the beginning of Woolf's essay in its reference to Smith, the knight and Muswell Hill. The middle piece seems also part of that recursion and likely is a loose reference to George Chapman's <i>Bussy D'Ambois </i>which she quotes at the start of "Notes on an Elizabethan Play." </div><div><br></div><div>Yes! Mitford seems a likely source for the shrieking owls and ivy --- and if I had to guess at an earlier referent to shrieking owls and ivy, we might find it either in the gothic tradition or in the world of supernatural romance that Mitford describes. </div><div><br></div><div>The last bit is certainly Webster's <i>The White Devil.</i></div><div><br></div><div>Here is the excerpt from Mitford's essay, "The Country Lodgings": </div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">"The house itself retained strong marks of former stateliness, especially in one projecting wing, too remote from the yard to be devoted to the domestic purposes of the farmer's family. The fine proportions of the lofty and spacious apartments, the rich mouldings of the ceilings, the carved chimney-pieces, and the panelled walls, all attested the former grandeur of the mansion; whilst the fragments of stained glass in the windows of the great gallery, the half-effaced coats of arms over the door-way, the faded family portraits, grim black-visaged knights, and pale shadowy ladies, or the reliques of mouldering tapestry that fluttered against the walls, and, above all, the secret chamber constructed for the priest's hiding-place in days of Protestant persecution, for in darker ages neither of the dominant churches was free from that foul stain,—each of these vestiges of the manners and the history of times long gone by appealed to the imagination, and conspired to give a Mrs. Radcliffe-like, Castle-of-Udolpho-sort of romance to the manor-house. Really, when the wind swept through the overgrown espaliers of that neglected but luxuriant wilderness, the terraced garden; when the screech-owl shrieked from the ivy which clustered up one side of the walls, and "rats and mice, and such small deer," were playing their pranks behind the wainscot, it would have formed as pretty a locality for a supernatural adventure, as ever decayed hunting lodge in the recesses of the Hartz, or ruined fortress on the castled Rhine. Nothing was wanting but the ghost, and a ghost of any taste would have been proud of such a habitation.</div><div dir="ltr"><br><div>Less like a ghost than the inhabitant who did arrive, no human being well could be."</div><div><br></div><div>Lastly, the quoted bit ("rats and mice, and such small deer") from Mitford's essay is likely either from<i> King Lear</i> (3.4.124-125) and/or their lines' source, the romance <i>Bevis of Hampton</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>With apologies for length--</div><div>Shilo </div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 5:23 AM Caroline Webb via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Google search on “owl shrieked in the ivy” turns up an article called “Upton Court” in
<i>The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction</i> , volume 29 (which I find elsewhere dates from 1837), that includes the following sentence:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>“Really, when the wind swept through the overgrown espaliers of that neglected but luxuriant wilderness, the terraced garden; when the screech-owl shrieked from the ivy that clustered up one side
of the walls, ‘and rats and mice, and such small deer’ were playing inside the wainscot, it would have formed as pretty a locality for a supernatural adventure as ever decayed hunting-lodge in the recesses of the Hartz, or ruined fortress on the castled Rhine.”<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>The source is given as a sketch by Miss Mitford called “Country Lodgings.”<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Woolf referred to the popularity of Mary Russell Mitford on various occasions (not positively, as I recall). Whether Mitford is also quoting I don’t know, but it sounds that way (though there is
a marked quotation in that sentence).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Caroline<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf-bounces@lists.osu.edu" target="_blank">vwoolf-bounces@lists.osu.edu</a>>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Laura Cernat via Vwoolf<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, 7 July 2020 6:20 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu" target="_blank">vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</a>; Stuart N. Clarke <<a href="mailto:stuart.n.clarke@btinternet.com" target="_blank">stuart.n.clarke@btinternet.com</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">The "White Devil" reference makes a lot of sense to me, since the play is also one of the intertextual references in "The Waste Land" and there seems to have been some tension between Woolf and T. S. Eliot over
some of the lines Eliot took from Webster ("the dog who's friend to man" was in Webster's original "the wolf who's foe to man"). For a set of interesting fictional speculations about the Webster passage and the reasons for replacing "wolf" with "dog", see
Norah Vincent's Woolf-themed biofiction <em><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Adeline.
</span></em><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Hope this is not too off-topic.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">All best,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Laura Cernat<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:black">From:</span></b><span style="color:black"> Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf-bounces+cernat.laura=kuleuven.be@lists.osu.edu" target="_blank">vwoolf-bounces+cernat.laura=kuleuven.be@lists.osu.edu</a>> on behalf of Stuart N. Clarke
via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" target="_blank">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, July 7, 2020 9:54 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu" target="_blank">vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference</span><span style="font-size:12pt;color:rgb(33,33,33)">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">“‘mongst women howling” is from “The White Devil” (5.3.36–7).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black"> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Stuart<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">(Day 112)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color:whitesmoke;background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black"> Elisa Sparks via Vwoolf
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color:whitesmoke;background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black">Sent:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black"> Tuesday, July 7, 2020 1:34 AM<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color:whitesmoke;background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black">To:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black">
<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu" target="_blank">vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</a>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color:whitesmoke;background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black">Subject:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif;color:black"> [Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan
reference<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Dear all--<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">I am researching ivy in Virginia Woolf and have discovered a pattern of references to owls in the ivy. I have not been able to find any literary origins for this association which appears no les
than six times in Woolf's writing. Particularly curious is this allusion in her 1925 essay "Notes on an Elizabethan Play":
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black"> and we scarcely recognise any likeness between the knight who imported timber and died of pneumonia at Muswell Hill and the
Armenian Duke who fell like a Roman on his sword while the <span style="background-color:aqua;background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial">
owl</span> shrieked in the <span style="background-color:lime;background-position:initial initial;background-repeat:initial initial">ivy</span> and the Duchess gave birth to a still-born babe ‘mongst women howling (E4 67)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black"> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black">Does anyone have any idea what minor Elizabethan dramatist Woolf is citing here? I am at an utter loss.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black"> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black">Thanks,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black">Elisa<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse"><span style="font-family:"times new roman",serif"><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse"><span style="font-family:"times new roman",serif">Shilo R. McGiff, PhD</span></span></div><div>Visiting Assistant Professor of English </div><div>Women's Resource Center, Advisor </div><div>Wells College </div><div>Aurora, NY 13026</div><div><br></div></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>