And not one in ten thousand knows your name

[sovay]

Copied from conversation with erzebeta, because it highly, highly amuses me.

I move to award Algernon Charles Swinburne geek points in retrospect for being a Peter Jackson hobbit.



From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

*accidentally conflates Proserpine and Galadriel and needs to lie down*

Comments

[sovay]

I told you I had to go lie down . . .

What I also find curious is that this sketch is perhaps the only piece of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's work where the subject looks as though they might, well, look like themselves rather than a Rossetti Person. Compare his painted portrait of Swinburne, where you can clearly tell this isn't Jane Morris—no matter how often he gave her different-colored hair—but he doesn't make you think "Swinburne!" so much as "Rossetti!"* This is Alexa Wilding, but she and Jane Morris have the same mouth, the same nose. Sigh. I liked Rossetti a lot less once I noticed this tendency . . .

But all is not lost. This is still a pretty damn cool Dante.

*And "Hair!" I swear Rossetti had a thing for hair. Look at his "Lilith" if you had any doubt . . .

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

...but it still looks disturbingly like Jane Morris.

[sovay]

In all fairness, that might still be better than looking like Doré's Dante, who seems to have toured the underworld perpetually sucking on a lemon.

(Although this illustration wins a serious point for being titled "Dante Addresses Pope Nicholas III." Snerk.)