Synopsis
It opens by setting the scene in the Norman village of Saint-Rambert amid countryside which the poet discusses with his friend Anne Thackeray, the dedicatee of the poem. Since she has jokingly named the locale "White Cotton Night-Cap Country", from the somnolence of the Calvados district and the white caps worn by the inhabitants, Browning changes the colour to red by way of pointing up the passion of the story he is about to tell, and alluding to the bonnet rouge worn by the revolutionaries of 1789 and again during the Paris Commune. The poem now turns to the story of Léonce Miranda, the heir to a jewellery business, who is raised on a luxurious estate in Saint-Rambert in the shadow of the church towers mentioned in the poem's subtitle, and who is torn between the opposing demands of religious devotion and the sensual, materialist side of his nature – "turf", as Browning calls it. Miranda takes a mistress called Clara de Millefleurs, and houses her in a luxuriously renovated priory. Miranda's scandalised mother exacerbates his sense of guilt over this affair to such good effect that he tries to commit suicide by drowning himself in the Seine. He fails in this attempt, but on the death of his mother Miranda is more riddled with guilt than ever, and so breaks off his relationship with Clara and, while trying to burn her letters, mutilates himself by burning off both his hands. However, he resumes the affair and tries to work off his guilt by making donations to the church of La Ravissante near his home. He dies by throwing himself from the belvedere of the priory as an act of faith, believing that he will be miraculously borne by the angels of the Virgin Mary to La Ravissante. His will, which divides his estate between the Church and Clara, is contested by his "cousinry", who believe Miranda to have been insane when he made it, but the courts uphold the will, declaring Miranda's death to have been an accident.
Anne Isabella, Lady Ritchie, née Thackeray, was an English writer and the eldest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray. Her several novels were highly regarded in their time and made her a central figure in the late Victorian literary scene. She is best remembered today as the custodian of her father's literary legacy, and for short fiction that places traditional fairy tale narratives in a Victorian milieu. Her 1885 novel Mrs. Dymond contains the earliest English-language use of the proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for life."
Calvados is a department in the Normandy region in northwestern France. It takes its name from a cluster of rocks off the English Channel coast.
The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, catalyzed violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon who brought many of its principles to areas he conquered in Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history.
Writing and publication
Having been originally told about the case of Antoine Mellerio in 1870 by his friend Joseph Milsand, Browning went on to research the facts with great thoroughness, reading newspaper reports and transcripts of the legal documents and interviewing residents of the district. [2] Browning wrote Red Cotton Night-Cap Country during December 1872 and January 1873, while the lawsuit over Mellerio's will was still under appeal. He originally used the real names of the characters and places in the affaire Mellerio, but on submitting the manuscript to his friend Lord Coleridge, then Attorney-General, he was advised that he might be sued for libel. All the names were accordingly changed: Antoine Mellerio to Léonce Miranda, Anna de Beaupré to Clara de Millefleurs, Saint-Aubin to Saint-Rambert, and so on. [3] The poem was published during the first week of May 1873 by Smith, Elder & Co., but they did not need to reprint it until, in 1889, along with The Inn Album, it formed volume 12 of his Poetical Works. [4]
John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge, PC was an English lawyer, judge and Liberal politician. He held the posts, in turn, of Solicitor General for England and Wales, Attorney General for England and Wales, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord Chief Justice of England.
Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General (A-G), is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. The Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser to the Crown and the Government in England and Wales, and though they maintain their own office, they are still subordinate to the Cabinet-level Secretary of State for Justice. The Solicitor General for England and Wales serves as the next in command and is subordinate to the Attorney General.
Saint Aubin-sur-Mer, in the District of Caen, is a commune in the Calvados department (14), of la Basse-Normandie (25), in northwestern France. Administratively, in the Township of Douvres-la-Délivrande, along its coast the town is 2.1 km to Bernieres-sur-Mer, and driving south is 5.1 to Beny-sur-Mer.
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating pertains to the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the "Beowulf poet".
Robert Seymour Bridges was Britain's poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is the author of many well-known hymns. It was through Bridges’ efforts that Gerard Manley Hopkins achieved posthumous fame.
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize, more commonly the Newdigate Prize, is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for the Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded in 1806 as a memorial to Sir Roger Newdigate (1719–1806). The winning poem is announced at Encaenia. Instructions are published as follows: "The length of the poem is not to exceed 300 lines. The metre is not restricted to heroic couplets, but dramatic form of composition is not allowed."
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often making the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. It is normally dramatic, with objectives, diverse and meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls, and lays.
The redcap is a type of malevolent, murderous goblin found in Border folklore. He is said to inhabit ruined castles along the Anglo-Scottish border, especially those that were the scenes of tyranny or wicked deeds, and is known for soaking his cap in the blood of his victims. He is also known as Redcomb and Bloody Cap.
James Montgomery was a Scottish-born hymn writer, poet and editor. His writings reflected concern for humanitarian causes such as the abolition of slavery and the exploitation of child chimney sweeps. He was raised in and theologically trained by the Moravian Church.
Saint-Ex is a 1996 British film biography made for direct release to television by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The story documents the life of French author-aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the form of a "tone poem". The film was directed by Anand Tucker and stars Bruno Ganz, Miranda Richardson and Janet McTeer. The screenplay was by Frank Cottrell Boyce, while the writer's sons, Aidan and Joseph, portrayed the Saint-Exupery brothers, Francois and Antoine, as children.
Geoffrey Philp is a Jamaican poet, novelist, and playwright. He is the author of the novel Benjamin, My Son (2003), and six poetry collections: Exodus and Other Poems (1990), Florida Bound (1995), Hurricane Center (1998), Xango Music (2001), Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas (2005), and Dub Wise (2010). He has also written two books of short stories, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien (1997) and Who's Your Daddy? and Other Stories (2009); a play, Ogun's Last Stand (2005), and the children's books Grandpa Sydney's Anancy Stories (2007) and Marcus and the Amazons (2011).
"Andrea del Sarto" is a poem by Robert Browning (1812–1889) published in his 1855 poetry collection, Men and Women. It is a dramatic monologue, a form of poetry for which he is famous, about the Italian painter Andrea del Sarto.
Secret Smile is a British drama serial in two parts shown by ITV in December 2005. It is set in Acton, London and is based on the Nicci French book of the same name, directed by Christopher Menaul and starring David Tennant, Claire Goose and Kate Ashfield.
Accentual-syllabic verse is an extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. Accentual-syllabic verse is highly regular and therefore easily scannable. Usually, either one metrical foot, or a specific pattern of metrical feet, is used throughout the entire poem; thus we can talk about a poem being in, for example, iambic pentameter. Poets naturally vary the rhythm of their lines, using devices such as inversion, elision, masculine and feminine endings, the caesura, using secondary stress, the addition of extra-metrical syllables, or the omission of syllables, the substitution of one foot for another.
Oliver Herford, a writer, artist, and illustrator, was born in Sheffield, England on December 2, 1860 to Rev. Brooke Herford and Hannah Hankinson Herford. Oliver's father, Brooke, was a Unitarian minister who moved the family to Chicago in 1876 and to Boston in 1882. Oliver attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio from 1877 to 1879. Later he studied art at the Slade School in London and the Académie Julien in Paris. Afterward, he moved to New York, where he lived until his death. He has been called "The American Oscar Wilde". As a frequent contributor to The Mentor, Life, and Ladies' Home Journal, he sometimes signed his artwork as "O Herford". In 1906 he wrote and illustrated the Little Book of Bores. He also wrote short poems like "The Chimpanzee" and "The Hen", as well as writing and illustrating "The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten" (1904) and "Excuse It Please" (1930). His sister Beatrice Herford was also a humorist.
Robert William Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon". He is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough. His vivid descriptions of the Yukon and its people made it seem that he was a veteran of the Klondike Gold Rush, instead of the late-arriving bank clerk he was. Although his work remains popular, Service's poems were initially received as being crudely comical works, but he became a wealthy author and lived very comfortably on proceeds from his writing.
Sir Joseph Arnould was a writer and British judge in India.
Mellerio dits Meller is a French jewellery house, founded in 1613, and still active today. It claims to be the oldest family company in Europe. It gives its name to the Mellerio cut, a 57-facet jewel cut, shaped as an oval within an ellipse. Today Mellerio is based in rue de la Paix, Paris, with branches in Luxembourg and Japan. It is a member of the Comité Colbert and also of Les Hénokiens, an international club made up of family companies over 200 years old. Directors François and Olivier Mellerio are the fourteenth generation to run the family business.
Sarah Gilmour, was a British ballet dancer, and Ballet Rambert's "leading ballerina of the 1940s". The ODNB notes that she was "acclaimed in the 1940s as second only to Margot Fonteyn among British ballerinas".
Colombe's Birthday is a play written by Robert Browning. In 1843, he was approached by William Macready's rival Charles Kean to write a play for him. Browning took up the offer and finished the play in 1844. In March of that year, he read the finished play to Kean and his wife, Ellen Tree, and it was accepted for production. However, they could not promise its performance until 1845 and forced Browning not to publish it until then. Despite this request, the play was published five weeks later as the next number of his Bells and Pomegranates series. The play was finally produced in 1853 through the influence of Helen Faucit, who starred in the first production as the title character.
