A Pin & A Prayer

On a previous post I commented that often women’s clothing was held together by little more than “pins and a prayer”. Janet Mullany responded by asking if this was true of the clothing of the upperclass, and the answer is yes. Actually, it’s far more likely to be true of the clothing of the moneyed than of the poor (pins were expensive!).

As far back as Ancient Greece (and probably even further), gowns were little more than lengths of fabric held together at the shoulder by pins of some sort (fibula to the Romans). During the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, gowns frequently fastened with pins (generally either up the side-front of the bodice or where the gown joined the stomacher). If you look closely at portraiture of the day, you can even see these pins portrayed (usually as a series of small dots along a seam, as in this detail of a Holbein painting of Jane Seymour).

In the 18th century, it was extremely common for gowns to be held together by nothing more than pins (they were used along jacket fronts as well as in the same gown/stomacher fashion as in the 15th-17th centuries). If pins were not used, women were often sewn into their gowns by their maids (which I swear can be faster than pinning, which would also have to be done by a maid, as the angle is nearly impossible for the person wearing the gown). In the sketch of the 16th century gown shown here, the gown is laced and then the stomacher pinned in, but I have not seen similar lace holes on 18th century gowns (but I have seen evidence that the stomacher was first pinned to the stays with tabs, meaning that the gown couldn’t have been laced beneath it).

In the Regency, pins start to fall out of fashion, but you do still see gowns closed with them. In particular, the so-called “apron front” gowns had the underbodice held together with pins, and often the bib was held up with them as well. Pins were also used to close the gap between ties at the back of gowns, and to hold up trains for dancing.

All this leads me to wonder if our heroes’ historical counterparts didn’t pay a bloody price for a hasty grope . . .

Tales of Love and War

“The worldview of a people, though normally left unspoken in the daily business of buying and selling ... is to be found in a culture’s stories, myths, and rituals.” (Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews).

The epic of pre-Islamic Persia (Iran) is the Shahnameh, or Epic of Kings, a collection of heroic tales written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi at the end of the 10th century C.E. This monumental effort took 30 years to complete and, sadly, the poet died in poverty and embittered by royal neglect in 1020 C.E. Significantly, the work is written in Persian, even though Arabic was the primary language of government and education at the time.

The Shahnameh deals with heroes and kings, but it is much more than a warrior-hero story or a collection of romantic tales of love and war. The epic is a window revealing the people and the rich culture of pre-Islamic [pre-7th century] Persia. On one level, it is a patriotic chronicle of the central role of monarchy in Persian history. On another level, it is a revelation of human strengths and foibles and a subtle discussion of authority and a not-so-subtle critique of the institution of monarchy.

The story of the hero, Rostam, for example, allows the reader a glimpse of an all-too-human hero’s decided ambivalence about the demands of heroism. Faced with the rescue of his horse, Rakhsh, Rostam wonders: “How can I stand against the Turks, and how can I traverse the desert alone?” Sir Lancelot would never utter such a thought!

Rostam’s personal ethics are at times at odds with the court. He insists that he is his own man, and constantly shows an independent streak that puts him outside of authority. He lives “on the edge,” like Dirty Harry, but he is sought after as a subduer of demons, like Superman. Rostam is also a cunning hero who plays tricks to win victories: “A wise man should not seek to be underhanded or unjust ... but keep your spear points dipped in poison, for wherever there is a kingdom, there is warfare, however great the realm may be.”

This advice Rostam gives to his king! The epic also contains revealing put-downs of Arab culture. At the time of its writing there was a good amount of antipathy between the Persians and the Arabized Turks and other Arab states: “You can buy the world with treasure and trouble, but you can’t cut Chinese silk with an axe." (Persian proverb)

To me it’s interesting that, after the 1979 Revolution in Iran, when the Shah stepped down and Khoumeni established a government based on an extremely fundamentalist form of Islam, the Shahnameh was banned from schools as un-Islamic. Fanatic Muslims even desecrated Ferdowsi’s tomb.

Still, the epic has survived to be considered one of the great works of literature, not only in Iran but by educated people world-wide.

Reference: Rostam, Tales of Love and War from Persia’s Book of Kings, Abolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis.

A Fine Romance

Over on Teach Me Tonight, the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (nicknamed “Jasper” or “Aspire”, depending on how one wants to play with initials) is holding a fundraiser for its fledgling program by asking folks to donate $2 dollars in honor of their favorite romantic couple, either fictional or real. Fictional is easy, but the real got me thinking about historical couples, and how very hard it is to pin down those which one might consider a true romance.

As Tracy has discussed so articulately on this site, a romance needn’t run smooth to be true. Some of the most compelling romances in fiction are those with a distinctly bumpy trajectory, like Harriet and Lord Peter in the Dorothy Sayers books. But so many of the romances in history land somewhere beyond bumpy. Explosive might be a better term, as in jumping on a mine and scattering the resulting pieces over a large area of territory. Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine come to mind. Their initial passion was certainly legendary, but the corrosive aftermath shaped the fate of more than one kingdom. In the comments on Teach Me Tonight, someone put in a vote for Abelard and Heloise. While they have become a byword for true love, having the one castrated and the other banished to a nunnery is generally not deemed a desirable end to a romantic attachment.

Part of the problem for history, as opposed to fiction, may simply be that we get to see too much. Instead of being allowed to imagine the happily ever after, we have the sometimes unhappy sequels arrayed before us, casting the unhappy light of hindsight on what might have looked properly fairy tale-like if cut off at the appropriate moment. In my last book, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, two of my modern characters, a history grad student and her boyfriend, have a debate on this topic:

“They lived and loved and died,” said Colin briskly. “They lost money, they died in wars, they suffered broken hearts. It isn’t all trumpets and glory.”

“I know, I know… I think that’s why one sees more happily ever afters in fiction than biographies. It’s not that the two trajectories are necessarily so different, but in fiction you can take the moment when everyone is happy and just clip off the thread of the narrative there, right at that trumpets and glory moment.”

“Even in fiction, isn’t it more interesting when you look at the whole picture, with the bad as well as the good?” argued Colin. “I’d rather know the whole story, even if it ends on a low note.”

“Warts and all?” I said, quoting the famous phrase about Cromwell. “Perhaps. It may be more interesting. But sometimes it’s less satisfying.”

Every now and then, you just need to believe that everything can be frozen in that one moment where everything is going right.

Another problem may be that the bias of recorded history tends towards the annals of the great. As more than one doomed Shakespearean king has informed us, the head that wears the crown seldom lies easy. While it is possible to ferret out the odd royal love story (Victoria and Albert, Charles I and Henrietta Maria), those marriages that were happy for the principles were often viewed as bad for the kingdom. Henrietta Maria’s influence on Charles has often been cited as one of the causes of the English Civil War and Victoria was roundly criticized for her excessive mourning of Albert, to the detriment of state affairs. It needn't be a crown. The same caveats apply to ducal coronets, baronial bonnets, and other exalted chapeaux. Just look at the crazy career of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Below the level of the haut ton, one does find fragmentary evidence of happy couples-- the seventeenth century diary of Ralph Josselin records a warm and happy marriage between the diarist and his wife—but it tends to be the more glamorous and disastrous pairings that stick in the popular imagination, the Napoleons and Josephines of the world, dramatic and doomed.

Having wandered rather away from the point, who are your favorite historical couples? Can one have "romance" in the historical context, or is it a misplaced concept?

Making History: It's About Time

I posted recently about my trip to the Popular Culture Association Conference, where I gave a presentation about how I think time works in romance fiction -- as a circle of redemption and celebration, where there's time to do it over and do it right.

I hope to sum up those remarks for this blog sometime when life and my own fiction writing don't get in the way.

Some other time.

Because this time I'm on the road again, visiting friends and family on the East Coast, to celebrate my cousin's kid's bar mitzvah, my son's PhD degree ceremony -- and my sister's wedding this May 17.

You may already have seen this news photograph, from the New York Times last November, of the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in Connecticut.

But you may or may not know that the woman on the left -- the little one waving that precious piece of paper so joyously -- is my sister, Robin Levine-Ritterman, half of one of the eight same-sex couples who sued the State of Connecticut for the right to marry and who won it last October.

Robin's body language is so naturally exuberant that I'm not surprised the Times photographer wanted to capture it.

And it's about time, too.

Because next week when they actually do get married it'll be seventeen years to the day after May 17, 1992, when Robin Ritterman and Barbara Levine -- and a big, noisy party of friends and family -- came together to eat and drink, to sing a capella and dance the hora, to hug and weep in celebration of this couple's commitment to becoming loving life partners.

Even if that first time no legal or governmental entity recognized it as a marriage.

And even if there were those among the crowd who weren't unambiguously delighted.

I've already written about this love story on my own blog. About the family arguments that burned up the phone lines in the months before the ceremony: Is this really necessary? Won't it be traumatic for the nieces and nephews? How about those in the family with strong religious sensibilities? Isn't this all a little... uh, blatant?

I wrote that in the end everyone attended. And brought all the kids (who were and still are fine -- not a trauma in sight). I suppose it helped that our families love to party; perhaps another way to put it is that we were brought up to recognize the life wisdom of celebration, of taking these precious times out of time to mark and measure a lifetime that's always too short (which is also a way of living your life, at least part of it, in romance time).

And because we loved Robin and Barb more than we loved our old habits and preconceptions -- and loved each other enough to want to share the joy and hardship of change.

Funny how that works -- funny how recognizing someone else's right to love makes your own family and romantic relationships stronger. Or so I believe and so, I'm convinced, more and more people will come to believe as they're faced with the choice of supporting or losing beloved family members. And as the tapestry of birth and death and sickness and kinship and community embraces us all in its "fine close weave" (as the writers of the PBS adaptation of Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford put it).

My sister, my sister-in-law and my struggling, squabbling family all made history. I write historical romance.

It's a fine close weave.

L'chaim and mazel tov.

We few, we happy few…We happily married couples in the Shakespearean canon.

Warkworth Castle, home of Harry Percy ["Hotspur"] (1364/66-1403)

I’ve been watching the “Age of Kings” BBC-TV telecasts from 1960-62—truncated productions of the histories, which are well worth the Netflix rental. Despite the language which sounds high flown to most contemporary ears, the clarity is excellent, something all too rare in contemporary productions. Shakespeare's histories tend to be some of the least accessible of his plays because of all the facts being thrown at the audience and the interrelationships between myriad courtiers can be downright confusing. But the actors make every word, every intention, crystalline. It's a clinic in performance that 21st century Shakespeare companies should study with the intensity of NFL teams reviewing their upcoming Sunday rival's game tapes.

Perhaps it’s a fact of also being an actress, but the scenes I invariably find the most compelling are those between a man and a woman—and they are few and far between in the history plays. If you only know the young Sean Connery’s work as 007, his performance (in 1960) as Harry Percy, better known as Hotspur, arrives as a delight. I hadn’t realized he was in the series. What a treat it was to see him performing Shakespeare with such tremendous comprehension and élan.

One of my favorite Shakespearean scenes ever, comes in Henry IV, Part 1, (Act II, scene 3) where Harry Percy tells his wife Kate that he must leave her—without exactly telling her where he’s going. In addition to tension and anxiety, the scene is replete with playful banter. The actual Harry Hotspur was married to Elizabeth Mortimer, but Shakespeare rarely let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Although the number of years is never stated in the text, through the way they relate to each other, we can guess that Kate and Hotspur have enjoyed a happy marriage of some duration, although they do have their issues: Kate feels neglected in the boudoir and in making her disappointment known to her husband, urges him to explain why he hasn’t wanted to make love lately. Her mention of this subject is a clue to the kind of relationship they have: this couple usually enjoys terrific (and frequent) sex. Kate realizes that something must be desperately troubling; and she's confident enough in their love to realize that the problem doesn't stem from domestic issues within the marriage, but as a result of outside pressures. As a full partner in their marriage, she demands to know the cause.

We meet the Percys in the middle of their marriage. Their courtship and wedding are long past by the time we see them. The tension and conflict in the scene does not come from the fact that they are a mismatched pair of lovers as we see in so many of Shakespeare’s comedies (and which Tracy so marvelously blogged about last week); but from the violent events that surround them and threaten (successfully, as it turns out) to tear them apart. Rebellion is in the air and Hotspur has been called to the latest front.

Kate wants to know where her husband is off to in such a hurry in the middle of the night. To protect her (as well as to keep his enterprise a secret), Hotspur refuses to tell her. The scene becomes a game to wheedle the information out of him. Kate wants to obtain it; Hostspur wants to withhold it. The couple tease, cajole, and (if it’s staged by a director who understands the text), spar with double entendres that can become sexy and physical.

HOTSPUR: What say'st thou, my lady?

LADY: What is it carries you away?

HOTSPUR: Why, my horse, my love, my horse.

LADY: Out, you mad-headed ape!

A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen

As you are toss'd with. In faith,

I'll know your business, Harry, that I will.

I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir

About his title, and hath sent for you

To line his enterprise: but if you go,--

HOTSPUR: So far a-foot, I shall be weary, love.

LADY: Come, come, you paraquito, answer me

Directly to this question that I ask:

In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry,

An if thou wilt not tell me true.

HOTSPUR: Away,

Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not,

I care not for thee, Kate: this is no world

To play with mammets and to tilt with lips:

We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns,

And pass them current too. . .

Kate then tries pouting:

LADY: Do you not love me? do you not indeed?

Well, do not, then; for, since you love me not,

I will not love myself. Do you not love me?

Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.

HOTSPUR: Come, wilt thou see me ride?

And when I am o' horseback, I will swear

I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate

I must not have you henceforth question me

Whither I go, nor reason whereabout:

Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude,

This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.

I know you wise; but yet no further wise

Than Harry Percy's wife; constant you are;

But yet a woman: and, for secrecy,

No lady closer; for I well believe

Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know;

And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.

And then, we get another moment of physicality, which should be so sexy that we feel like we’re intruding on a private moment between the spouses.

LADY: How! so far?

HOTSPUR: Not an inch further.

Hotspur then promises Kate that she will set forth the following day and join him. The genuine love and passion they share is palpable, rare for one of Shakespeare’s warriors. Theirs is no political marriage. They tease, they tickle, they touch. Kate adores her husband, and when he is killed by Prince Hal (Harry Monmouth, the future Henry V), she is utterly bereft, and furious with her father-in-law, the Earl of Northumberland, for failing to support his son in the field, and when he finally sees the light, it is too little and far too late. The widowed Lady Percy's tirade against Northumberland in Act II, Scene 3 of Henry IV, Part 2 (remember where Lady Percy’s first big scene was in HIV Part 1!) is such a loving homage to her late husband that it breaks your heart.

LADY PERCY:

. . . by his light

Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts: he was indeed the glass

Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:

. . . so that in speech, in gait,

In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion’d others.

. . . Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong

To hold your honour more precise and nice

With others than with him! let them alone:

The marshal and the archbishop are strong:

Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,

To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck,

Have talk’d of Monmouth's grave.

19th c. engraving depicting Hotspur's death

William Shakespeare’s own marriage might not have been a happy one. He was eighteen in November, 1582 when he wed the twenty-six-year-old Anne Hathaway. He’d made her pregnant. The fact that he went down to London to seek his fortune and therefore lived apart from Anne is not necessarily proof of marital unhappiness; yet on the other hand, Shakespeare was the shrewdest observer of humanity, and, like every writer, he may very well have infused his writing with his own experiences. Should we be surprised that there are so few happy marriages in his plays?

What other examples of happy marriages from the Shakespearean canon come to mind?

The Architect of Kedleston Hall

Setting the Record Straight

It is entirely possible that no one cares about this subject except me, but that is the fun of this blog. I get to talk about subjects that you can choose to read. . . or not.

Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire is considered one of the finest “Great Houses” in England, largely because it of its unique design and exquisite interiors.

If the name, Kedleston, is not familiar maybe the picture at right will ring a bell. Kedleston is the only Great House I have ever seen that uses curving arcades to connect its two wings to the main block. As graceful as the exterior is, the interior is even more impressive. As one reviewer explains, it manages to be a comfortable home as well as an artistic masterpiece. The work is credited to Robert Adam. Today Adam is the best known late 18th century name in architecture and interior design.

Years ago, while doing research at the National Gallery of Art (DC) I was taking a break from going through their amazing collection of Rowlandson cartoons and asked to see the design books of James Paine, one of the most prominent architects of the very competitive late eighteenth century. To my surprised delight I found, in this primary source, the design for Kedleston dated significantly before Adam’s involvement in the projecet.

For years I have tried to solve this puzzle. Why is Adam credited with this masterwork when it was Paine’s design? The architects of the period had a very competitive streak and it is hard to believe that Paine would allow credit to go to someone else.

I found the answer, or enough of one to satisfy me, in a book edited by Robert Haring, then editor of HOUSE AND GARDEN magazine. The book, THE GREAT HOUSE AND FINEST ROOMS OF ENGLAND, was published in 1969 and found its way to me through my wonderful local second hand book store, Second Looks Books.

Kedleston had not one but three architects. The design that is so famous was the idea of Matthew Brettingham. According to Haring, Brettingham is “responsible for the essential structure we see today: a central block with two wings connected by curving corridors.”

The central block was completed under Brettingham’s direction before Paine took over and prepared “fresh designs” for the whole building. Haring is not specific on how Paine’s designs differed from Brettingham’s, but the next time I go to the National Gallery of Art (DC) I am going to ask if they have any of Brettingham’s work and do my own comparison.

Paine’s most famous contribution, besides the fresh design, is the North Front of the central block (the second photo above).

Adam may have gained the commission for the same reason that Paine had supplanted Brettingham: Robert Adam was the up and coming name in architecture and design. Indeed while Paine was still listed as the architect, Adam had already been commissioned to prepare designs for the interior decoration of the house. In the end Paine gave way to Adam and the two remained civil to each other despite Paine’s initial resistance and profound disappointment.

Adam is responsible for the South Front (at right below) of the central block and in a comparison of the two we see each architects interpretation of the Palladian style. The North Front by Paine is representative of the “correct” interpretation of the Palladian idea and the south front demonstrates the virtues of “movement” that gives energy to a static style.

What a relief to have that architectural question solved. By the way, the interior of Kedleston is even more impressive than the exterior. More on that next time.

If you have read all the way though you must care a little about such an esoteric question. Tell me, have you ever discovered a question in your research that has puzzled or confused you? Is there any subject you love, but is so obscure you are sure no one else is interested? I am.

What Are You Reading Now?

This will be a short post for me. Today is the first day of our Silicon Valley RWA Chapter's annual conference. This year, we are doing an "All-Writers-All-Weekend" themed conference. I'll be the emcee and have the honor of introducing great writers like Catherine Coulter, Barbara Freethy, Candice Hern, Karin Tabke, motivational speaker Eric Maisel and others! We will of course, have agents on hand for hungry and aspiring writers to pitch to. So, I'll be pretty busy for the next 48 hours.

But speaking of Catherine Coulter---an author I've enjoyed reading for years now....I decided to step back and read more of the old historicals, those on Catherine's backlist and others. I wanted to study the books that helped to launch great careers---and I just wanted to take a break from everything. With the downturn of the economy (one reason why our RWA local chapter did not fly editors in from New York for our conference) and the flu outbreak...what do you read for pure escapism?

I'm reading a Signet Regency Romance called Red Rose, written by the great Mary Balogh. Yep, it was published in 1986 and this copy is so old it's the color of parchment. I love it. Rich characters,with lots of period detail.

Reading this now I can see how Ms. Balogh's star has risen so high. She is wonderful. Kind of makes me think "I knew her when." ;-)

What (or who) are you reading now? Who is your favorite "backlist" author?