Nigel Bruce

Splendour in the Grass

'Hamlet' and Public Education

The U.S. public education system today does not resemble Rousseau's Émile. It resembles a Shakespearean melodrama, with stabbings, jealousies, crazy old people and alienated young people locked up together in a Gothic castle. Ah, but which play does that remind you of? Hamlet... Like Hamlet’s father,

Precious Bodily Fluids

'Hamlet' in Scotland

Were early versions of Hamlet influenced by events in Scotland? There are those who think so. Indeed there are those who believe that the Scots Invented the Modern World. But the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587 undoubtedly impressed itself upon Thomas Kyd, Shakespeare and the other London

Alice's Mirrors

Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Snow Queen'

Hans Christian Andersen’s sexuality has been a matter of some controversy over the years, especially in Denmark. Many academics and journalists have claimed him as a repressed homosexual or bisexual or ambisexual, with The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling trotted out as evidence. Indeed there&

Alice's Mirrors

Harlequin of the Commedia dell'arte

Was the Harlequin of the Commedia dell'arte originally Black? This is not a new idea. In his heyday Harlequin wore a black mask as in the picture below. Just as there is a tradition of White Face clowns (e.g. the Pierrot), there is also a tradition of

Sacred Prostitute

Harry Potter

Rowling makes superb use of medieval and Renaissance alchemy rather than Christianity per se until the seventh book and it aroused controversy among those who saw alchemy as heresy and witchcraft. Those objections now have mostly faded away. The English title of her first book, The Philosopher's Stone,

Spinster

Headstones Jane Austen family

Shown above are the headstones for Jane Austen's mother and sister, who were both named Cassandra, at St. Nicholas Chawton. Cassandra (sister) lived to be 72; like Jane she never married. Jane herself is buried elsewhere, in Winchester Cathedral, which may have been her own choice.

Angel Incarnate

Health and Hygiene in Renaissance Italy

During the 13th-15th centuries, health and hygiene books were collected by wealthy Italians. One of the most influential was the Tacuinum Sanitatis, essentially Latin translations from Arabic with illustrations added. Most are self-evident (eating properly, exercise, etc.) but among the activities of daily life is "amore" (up above)

The Judgment of Paris

Helen of Troy

There are surprisingly few interesting images of Helen of Troy in the history of art, although there are many. Maybe painting the world's most beautiful woman was a challenge. Or it produced strange offspring, like this painting of her birth: that's not Helen though. That'

Immortal Beloved

Helenental

The Helenental is a forested area in the Vienna Woods west of the spa town of Baden bei Wien, along the River Schwechat. Beethoven often walked there and it is said to be the inspiration for the Pastoral Symphony, which he composed between 1802 and 1808. Leaving Baden bei Wien,

Kama Sutra

'Help!'

Indian immigrants poured into Britain between 1948 and 1962, when the Conservative government passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. For many in Britain, India was not the land they had oppressed for several hundred years, but the land of yoga and yogis, spicy food and strange religious and sexual practices. In

The Woman in the Bower

Henry II, King of England

Henry II is shown above left, Henry the Younger is shown center bottom, and Richard I, the Lionheart, is on the right. This image is from an illuminated manuscript, said to be from between 1250 and 1259. Henry's Angevin empire can be seen in this visual:

The House of Incest

Henry Miller

Also see: The Noctambule

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Herman Melville's Sons

From what little we know, Melville's oldest son Malcolm killed himself at the age of 18 in 1867. He had enlisted in a volunteer regiment, it being not long after the end of the Civil War, and he shot himself with the revolver that he kept under his

Kama Sutra

Hermann Hesse in photos

Dreaming of the Virgin Mary

Hermes (and Mercury)

Hermes (the Roman Mercury) was the messenger of the gods, the bringer of dreams and the final journey to death. As the patron saint of art and commerce, he was worshipped by athletes and herdsmen, magicians and mystics, poets, travelers, liars and thieves. And he was associated with sex... Above

Kama Sutra

Hermann Hesse in the Swiss Alps

Hesse moved to Montagnola on Lake Lugano in the Ticino canton of Switzerland in 1919 and he lived there for most of his life. Drawn to the cool mountain air and the remoteness, Hesse became Swiss by citizenship in 1924. Hesse is the world’s most widely read German-language author

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Hexagram 33

Ralph Waldo Emerson on why travel is a bad idea: "Traveling is a fool's paradise," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. He had a lot to say about the follies of travel in his essay Self-Reliance while Melville was lost in the South Seas... The soul is no

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Hexagram 34

Abraham Lincoln: Thunder over Heaven Ta Chuang - the superior man does not tread upon paths that do not accord with established order. It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Hexagram 55

Joseph Smith Feng – thunder over the fire - the preacher and prophet... It is not given to every mortal to bring about a time of outstanding greatness and abundance. Only a born ruler of men is able to do it, because his will is directed to what is great. Such

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Hexagram 56

Herman Melville - Lu the Wanderer Conventional explanations of Melville focus on his restless spirit. That's the gist of a well known diagnosis by "friend" Nathaniel Hawthorne: It is strange how he persists – and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before – in

Sacred Prostitute

Hildegard of Bingen

The most influential religious women of the medieval era worshipped the feminine spirit associated with the Virgin Mary rather than Mary Magdalene. Consider the great 12th-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a contemporary of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Bernard of Clairvaux (both of whom she corresponded with). She founded

Vampires in Venice

Historical Vampires

The vampire invaded Western Europe across the flat Hungarian plains as the Ottoman Turks retreated from the Slavic lands. At first the vampire was a Christian -- a heretic or criminal or suicide -- whose restless soul would leave its grave at night, usually as a bat, to drink human

How to Look at a Naked Lady

Hitchcock’s 'Rear Window'

Rear Window (1954) is the story of news photographer L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) who is confined to his Greenwich Village apartment with a broken leg. To keep himself occupied “Jeff” looks out of his window at the adjacent apartments and one day thinks he sees indications that a woman

Dreaming of the Virgin Mary

Virgin Hodegetria

Roman legions may have marched under their Eagles, but for Byzantine armies and navies it was the icons of the Virgin Mary that inspired them. They took two main forms. Hodegetria refers to icons of the Virgin Mary pointing to the Christ child (it literally means "She who shows

The Woman in the Bower

Hölderlin's Tower

Rosamond's retreat to Godstow reminds me of a host of writers (plus Rapunzel) who have found inspiration in their own private tower. One of them was the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin. In 1807, when he was 37, he retreated into this tower overlooking the Neckar River in Tübingen