[Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference

[coruscate818]

Some of it seems to fit John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi."

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 8:34 PM Elisa Sparks via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
wrote:

> Dear all--
> 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":
>
>              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 owl shrieked in the ivy and
> the Duchess gave birth to a still-born babe ‘mongst women howling (E4 67)
>
>
> Does anyone have any idea what minor Elizabethan dramatist Woolf is citing
> here?  I am at an utter loss.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Elisa
>
>
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