A digression
(I just can’t help it!).
Last Friday (December
18, 2015) I was in the local coffee shop (as I am just about every morning),
when I saw a recent former student who had just graduated from college and is
now in the process of applying to graduate schools. Oddly, before I went over
to say hello, I saw a Facebook post from her that featured a painting that
resembled “The Nightmare” (1781) by Henri Fuseli (1741–1825); others have been inspired by
that painting (or have sort of stolen the idea), so it could have been one of
the others. I wasn’t sure. Her post indicated the nightmarish qualities of the
application process.
Anyway, I
was amused because—as writers know (writers who are obsessed with a subject)—everything seems to relate to the
subject you’re working on. With my own Mary Shelley research I’ve done since
1997, for instance, I see connections from Mary (and her circle) to just about everything else I’m doing. And so it is
with Fuseli (pronounced FYOO-zuh-lee),
who while in his twenties moved to England but had been born in Switzerland,
where his name was Johann Heinrich Füssli.
Known today
for his innovative paintings and works of art, he’s had an enormous influence on
other artists—then and now—including the younger William Blake, who, if you
recall, did some illustrations for the second edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s
children’s book Original Stories from
Real Life (1791). By the way, you’ve got to love the entire title for this
book—and think about how it illustrates the differences between childhood then
and childhood now: Original Stories from
Real Life; with Conversations, Calculated to Regulate the Affections, and Form
the Mind to Truth and Goodness. Not exactly Horton Hears a Who.
And here the
story gets juicy. After Mary had become a sort of controversial (minor)
celebrity because of her publications (principally, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, 1790, and her still-popular A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
1792), she became acquainted through her publisher, Joseph Johnson, with Henry
Fuseli and his wife. And she felt a powerful attraction to this brilliant,
talented man. She began to think they might be able to work out an …
arrangement.
Which is
interesting. Wollstonecraft biographer Janet Todd points out his various
qualities—physical and otherwise—that made him less than an attractive figure
to the romantically inclined. Todd says he was irascible and his short,
slight stature, white hair and trembling hand … belied his vehemence. He was
known for his malevolent wit [and] must have been a dominating presence at the
dinner table.[1]
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