[Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference

Tue Jul 7 13:03:59 EDT 2020

Some thoughts:

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 *Bussy D'Ambois *which she quotes at the
start of "Notes on an Elizabethan Play."

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.

The last bit is certainly Webster's *The White Devil.*

Here is the excerpt from Mitford's essay, "The Country Lodgings":

"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.

Less like a ghost than the inhabitant who did arrive, no human being well
could be."

Lastly, the quoted bit ("rats and mice, and such small deer") from
Mitford's essay is likely either from* King Lear* (3.4.124-125) and/or
their lines' source, the romance *Bevis of Hampton*.

With apologies for length--
Shilo

On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 5:23 AM Caroline Webb via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> Google search on “owl shrieked in the ivy” turns up an article called
> “Upton Court” in *The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction* ,
> volume 29 (which I find elsewhere dates from 1837), that includes the
> following sentence:
>
>
>
> “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.”
>
>
>
> The source is given as a sketch by Miss Mitford called “Country Lodgings.”
>
>
>
> 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).
>
>
>
> Caroline
>
>
>
> *From:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> *On Behalf Of *Laura Cernat
> via Vwoolf
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 7 July 2020 6:20 PM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu; Stuart N. Clarke <
> stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference
>
>
>
> 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 *Adeline.
> *
>
>
>
> Hope this is not too off-topic.
>
>
>
> All best,
>
>
>
> Laura Cernat
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+cernat.laura=kuleuven.be at lists.osu.edu> on
> behalf of Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 7, 2020 9:54 AM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference
>
>
>
> “‘mongst women howling” is from “The White Devil” (5.3.36–7).
>
>
>
> Stuart
>
> (Day 112)
>
>
>
> *From:* Elisa Sparks via Vwoolf
>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 7, 2020 1:34 AM
>
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
>
> *Subject:* [Vwoolf] really obscure Elizabethan reference
>
>
>
> 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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-- 
Shilo R. McGiff, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Women's Resource Center, Advisor
Wells College
Aurora, NY 13026
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