Nigel Bruce

Kama Sutra

Dulac's Arabian Nights or Disney's Agrabah?

Immediately above (and below) is Edmund Dulac's Arabian Nights (1907). Up top is Disney's Agrabah in Aladdin - clearly an homage. Dulac was a French book illustrator whose heyday was in England in the years before World War I. He produced his whimsical flights of fancy

The Age of Consent

Dylan Thomas and Adam and Eve

Dylan Thomas wrote the lines “I know the legend/Of Adam and Eve is never for a second/Silent in my service,” in Ceremony After a Fire Raid, one of his many brilliant emotional poems about the fire-bombings of World War II and one of his many acknowledgements of the

Immortal Beloved

E.T.A. Hoffmann and The Sandman Letters

Some of us grew up with a vague knowledge of who The Sandman was. He sprinkled sand in our eyes until we fell asleep. But in E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story, The Sandman (Der Sandmann) (1816), he steals the eyes of children who won't go

Homer's Women

'Ecce Homo' by Mateo Cerezo

Odysseus himself is a prototype of the Christ figure for the way he suffers the whims of the gods. Ecce Homo means "behold the man," the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate when he presents Jesus to a hostile crowd shortly before the crucifixion.  Ecce Homo was a

The Age of Consent

Edgar Allan Poe portrait photos

The most famous photos of Poe, shown above and below were initially daguerrotypes taken in 1848 and 1849, the year before his death at the age of 40 from unknown causes. Do these photos tell us anything about Poe really? He looks best in this modern retouched version: For the

Oz is China

Edgar Rice Burroughs and L. Frank Baum

When Burroughs came to write his John Carter adventure novels, he had internalized much of what Baum was trying to do in the Oz books. Burrough's own first efforts were children's stories between 1901-04, but success came in 1912 when Under the Moons of Mars was

Sacred Prostitute

El Greco's 'Mary Magdalene in Penitence'

El Greco's "Mary Magdalene in Penitence" has a nipple showing. It was painted around 1577 shortly after his arrival in Spain, as part of a series (the others are much more discreet). Some critics believe it is a portrait of his mistress, Jerónima de las Cuevas,

Letters from Africa

Eldad Hadani and Prester John

The legends of Prester John are well accounted for elsewhere. Less so for Eldad Hadani (ha-Dani). Hadani (literally “Eldad the Dan-ite”) was said to be a 9th century Jewish merchant and traveler who claimed to be from an independent Jewish kingdom in Ethiopia, although he seemed to know nothing about

The Woman in the Bower

Eleanor of Aquitaine's Coat of Arms

Technically, this is the coat of arms of Eleanor's County of Poitou (at Poitiers), which was absorbed into the duchy of Aquitaine. The Coat of Arms for Aquitaine has a horizontal lion (see at bottom), which may be compared with the imperial Chinese dragon at the bottom of

Homer's Women

Eudora Welty and the 'Odyssey'

Eudora Welty's writing recalls for me the Odyssey in its dreamscapes and its interesting women on the move. Circe herself appears in the short story The Bride of the Innisfallen, written in 1951. Welty rarely makes her mythological references as obvious as this, yet Greek mythology seems to

From Russia with Love

'Evita'

Margaritas and Madonnas Evita began life in 1976 as a collection of songs, possibly inspired by Margarita from Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita. There is a chance that the key song back then was "Don't cry for me, Mother Russia," but Lloyd-Webber and Tim

Letters from Africa

Ezekiel

Angels and Wheels over Zion Is there a sexier book in the Tanakh or Old Testament? Of the Jewish prophets, Ezekiel has long been the one to make people (Jews and Christians) uncomfortable with his sexually explicit references, especially in chapters 16 and 23: (23) 19 Yet she became more

The Age of Consent

Fallen angels and Milton's 'Paradise Lost'

In Western literature and art, fallen angels became a popular theme primarily after Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). Milton depicts a memorable Satan, Prince of the Air, who commits incest with his daughter, Sin, and they have a child, Death, who then rapes his Mother! (Pictures here) Better to reign

The Whore's Revenge

'Fanny Hill'

Fanny Hill, originally titled Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland, was written and published in London in 1748-49. It is generally regarded as Europe's first erotic novel and there seems little doubt that Casanova would have read it by the time he was in London

Oz is China

Favorite Wizard of Oz aphorisms

Todd Gilman: “Aunt Em: Hate You! Hate Kansas! Taking the Dog. Dorothy.” TV synopsis: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.” Chinese peasant proverb: “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away”

The Whore's Revenge

Fellini's 'Casanova'

The film was released in 1976. Fellini was clear that he didn't like Casanova. Above is an image used for the film's soundtrack. Below is a German DVD cover based on the original poster.

The Woman in the Bower

Fellini's 'City of Women'

Fellini's film came out in 1980; it was not well received. These are some of the posters and DVD covers...

Precious Bodily Fluids

Ferrara and the fall of the House of Este

Ferrara was home to one of the main branches of the powerful Este family, named after the small town of Este to the north. It was a center of the arts and sciences, the birthplace of Girolamo Savonarola and both Ariosto and Tasso lived and wrote there. The ancestral line

Voices and Saints

Flag of Free France

The flag of Free France, shown above, contains the Cross of Lorraine, also known as the Cross of Anjou. Why Lorraine? Because - as with Joan of Arc - it symbolized the lost provinces of France, on this occasion lost to Germany after 1871. It was the only official flag

Life as Opera

Folies Bergère in postcards

Life as opera! The Folies-Bergère is still around, but it was at the height of its fame and popularity from the 1890's through the 1920's. Visit today and you might see shows like Fantasma Circus Erotica, but most shows these days aren't erotica -

Spinster

Following the Fashion

It can't have been easy "following the fashion" in Austen's time. That's the name of the satirical caricature above by James Gillray from 1794. Gillray is mocking the high-waisted dresses of the time, with the aristocratic woman on the left (from St.

How to Look at a Naked Lady

The Forest of Arden

The Forest of Arden today is near Coventry - or at least a surviving piece of it is to the south of the city. Historically, it was much larger. Its wood pasture and ancient grasslands occupied the area between Birmingham and Coventry, creating a natural buffer between the two cities.

Alice's Mirrors

Fowey, Cornwall

Fowey in Cornwall has many literary associations going back to Joseph of Arimathea, of Holy Grail fame no less. Joseph, introduced in Luke 23, is known for burying the body of Jesus in the tomb, assisted by Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus. But there is a legend

Alice's Mirrors

François Boucher and Reinterpreting Greek Classics

Boucher, one of the most celebrated French painters of the 18th century, was in the eyes of his detractors (like Diderot), nothing but a pimp. He used his beautiful wife as a model and he privately indulged in erotica like the painting below, Leda and the Swan, which is only

Angel Incarnate

François Rabelais on Marriage

There are many things one could say about François Rabelais... Physician, lay priest, scourge of hypocrites, advocate for marriage, advocate for "Do as Thou Wilt"? The 5-part La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel series, for which he is rightfully admired, received a hostile reception from the Sorbonne