R Portrait
of a Lady
Inspired by Henry James' novel of the same name, this
poem mixes aspects of other books by James and by others
in Eliot's now well known style. The title of Henry
James' novel seems to have at least partially derived
from a painting by Correggio, a famous 16th century
painter who's name figures five times in Portrait of
a Lady, most notably as being the favourite
possession of one of the characters from the novel,
Henrietta. The real portrait painted in this novel,
however, is that of Isabel.Correggio's 'Portrait of a
Lady:
In Eliot's poem, the portrait being
painted is not that of Isabel, however, but of the great
character of James' The Aspern Papers, the famous poet's
ancient lover Miss Bordereau.
R Jew of Malta
Marlowe's notorious late 16th century play, which is so
similar to that other play that Eliot refers to so
frequently, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
These lines from Marlowe's play more or less describes
what happened in The Aspern Papers between
Jeffrey Aspern and Miss Bordereau, who had an
extra-marital affair. Based on this, we can identify at
least one of the voices speaking in Eliot's poem as
Asperns. Others may be the literary researcher's and both
by structural as by biographical parallel perhaps also
Eliot's, who after all left America. But it would then be
hard to identify the old lady - perhaps Eliot's mother,
partly? (a wild guess).
R lilacs
In the Aspern Papers, the literary researcher
tries to placate the Miss Bordereaus by growing flowers
and sending them up to their room.
R 'dying
fall'
The quotation marks leave little doubt where these words
are from:
I had made my way to it the day after my
arrival in Venice-it had been described to me in advance
by the friend in England to whom I owed definite
information as to their possession of the papers-laying
siege to it with my eyes while I considered my plan of
campaign. Jeffrey Aspern had never been in it that I knew
of, but some note of his voice seemed to abide there by a
roundabout implication and in a 'dying fall'.
Henry James, The Aspern Papers
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