Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers: an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression, preceded by a view of emblem-literature down to A.D. 1616Green, Henry
History
Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers: an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression, preceded by a view of emblem-literature down to A.D. 1616
Green, Henry
Emblem books, English -- History; Emblems -- England -- History; Emblems in literature; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Sources
The fifty years which remain to the period comprised within the limits
of this Sketch of Emblem Literature we divide into two portions of
twenty-five years each: 1st, up to 1590, when Shakespeare had fairly
entered on his dramatic career; and 2nd, from 1590 to 1615, when,
according to Steevens (edition 1785, vol. i. p. 354), his labours had
ended with _The Twelfth Night, or, What You Will_. As far as actual
correspondences between Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers demand, our
Sketch might finish with 1610, or even earlier: for some time will of
necessity intervene, after a work has been issued, before it will modify
the thoughts of others, or enter into the phrases which they employ.
However, there is nothing very incongruous in making this Sketch and the
last of Shakespeare’s dramas terminate with the same date.
I.—In 1564, at Rome, in 4to, the distinguished Latinist, Gabriel
Faerno’s Fables were first printed, 100 in number;—it was three years
after his death. The plates are from designs which Titian is said to
have drawn. Our English Whitney adopts several of Faerno’s Fables among
his Emblems, and on this authority we class them with books of Emblems.
From time to time, as late as to 1796, new editions and translations of
the Fables have been issued. A copy in the Free Library, Manchester,
“Romæ Vincentius Luchinus, 1565,” bears the title, _Fabvlae Centvm ex
antiqvis avctoribvs delectae, et a Gabriele Faerno, Cremonensi
carminibvs explicatae_.
Virgil Solis, a native of Nuremberg, where he was born in 1514, and
where he died in 1570; and Jost Amman, who was born at Zurich in 1539,
but passed his life at Nuremberg, and died there in 1591, were both
artists of high repute, and contributed to the illustration of
Emblem-works. The former, between 1560 and 1568, produced 125 _New
Figures for the New Testament_, and _An Artistic little Book of
Animals_; and the latter, from 1564 to 1586, contributed very largely to
books of _Biblical Figures_, of “Animals,” of “Genealogies,” of
“Heraldry,” and of the _Habits_ and _Costumes_ of All Ranks of the
_Clergy of the Roman Church_, and of _Women_ of every “Condition,
profession, _and age_,” throughout the nations of Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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