The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (17 page)

England was the birthplace of William Shakespeare, and Regency London loved Shakespeare. I must admit when Eloisa mentions a Shakespeare play in her novels I think perhaps her love (obsession) of Shakespeare is unconsciously bursting through to her writing. My opinion is that Eloisa is such a born teacher that she cannot help but educate readers about Shakespeare at every opportunity: we are all her students.

On her website, Eloisa actually pointed to her expertise in Shakespeare when discussing how she created Miss Pythian-Adams, a woman who ruthlessly quotes Shakespeare in order to put off an unwanted suitor: “Miss Pythian-Adams is kind of a joke on myself. After teaching Shakespeare for ten years, I have managed to memorize a great deal of verse without trying. There are moments when I have to restrain myself from boring everyone by dropping a particularly great bit of poetry into a conversation just because it occurred to me.”

On the other hand, though, did you notice in the above theatre descriptions that when the Covent Garden Theatre opened after the 1808 fire, it was with a performance of
Macbeth
? And after the third Drury Lane Theatre was rebuilt on March 12, 1794, its second performance was also
Macbeth
. What’s more, I discovered that after the 1809 fire at Drury Lane, the new theatre led the season with a production of
Hamlet
.

A detailed description of the new 1809 Covent Garden Theatre in the
History and Illustration of London Theatres
describes a portico in the middle of which sits “OUR
immortal BARD
and the emblems of dramatic poetry lying around him.” The group of statues include “Hecate, in her car, drawn by oxen; Lady Macbeth, with the daggers; and
Macbeth, turning with horror from the dead body of Duncan.” In addition, a large statue of Shakespeare made of yellow marble by the sculptor Rossi was located in the anteroom at the top of the grand entrance staircase.

The main entrance of the new Drury Lane Theatre featured a statue of Shakespeare on the roof. Inside the theatre there was a two-story rotunda leading to the boxes upstairs. At the entrance of the lower level was a massive stove featuring a cast of Shakespeare with an inscription in gold letters: “He was not for an age, but for all time.” Inside the theatre, the fronts of the first level of boxes were decorated with panels depicting the most popular Shakespeare dramas. The greenroom also included a bust of Shakespeare—perhaps as motivation for the actors.

In short, I am forced to conclude that Shakespeare doesn’t pop up in Eloisa’s novels only because she is a Shakespeare professor. Remember the Hyde Park Theatre? It’s one of the few theatres Eloisa made up. She put Shakespeare into its (imaginary) repertory.

                       
They were all talking about some Shakespeare play being put on at the Hyde Park Theater. “I shouldn’t want to see it,” Thurman put in. “The very name Shakespeare sends shivers down my spine. Memories of Rugby, you know.”

Pleasure for Pleasure

It’s pretty clear that any educated person at the time would have had a thorough knowledge of the plays, and might well have memorized
Macbeth
, given its popularity. This would explain why Eloisa’s characters quote Shakespeare at the drop of a hat. And any theatre wishing to be a success would have to put Shakespeare plays into its repertory.

I found one fascinating anecdote in
Old and New London
about the Royal Theatre at Haymarket (which Eloisa doesn’t mention) that I have to share. In 1810, a wealthy, middle-aged man decided that he knew Shakespeare as well as professional actors, and consequently, he would like to perform scenes from
Romeo and Juliet
. He is described as routinely wearing a “quantity of fur,” along with buttons and knee-buckles studded with diamonds. I can imagine him in one of Eloisa’s novels.

Well, he managed to book the Haymarket Theatre and announced he would appear in the character of Romeo. He appeared in a cloak of sky-blue silk, profusely spangled, red pantaloons, a vest of white muslin, and a wig of the style of Charles II, capped by an opera hat. Alas, “his nether garments” then burst in seams that could not be concealed. The anecdote is made more complex by a reference to the man as being of “West Indian origin”; racism certainly plays a part in the account of his disastrous performance. But it also points to the fact that Shakespeare plays were well enough known that any educated person could make a claim to being able to perform in one, and certainly he or she could quote extensively from the texts.

That said, Eloisa is very careful not to simply drop Shakespeare here and there, without a sound reason for it. Sometimes she uses a simple reference to make it clear
someone is stupid, like Thurman, above. At other points, a Shakespeare reference may make a metaphorical point.

Eloisa’s essay earlier in this book discusses her use of the character Bottom, from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, in relation to Rafe. In that play, Bottom is enchanted with a donkey head, after which the fairy queen Titania is drugged so she falls in love with him. Rafe refers to himself as Bottom because he has been wooing Imogen in disguise.

But my favorite use of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
comes in
Pleasure for Pleasure
, where Eloisa doesn’t use Bottom as a reference, but instead writes the enchanted wood, the home of the fairy king and queen, into her novel. Here, the Shakespeare play isn’t used as a metaphor for disguise, but for magic, love, enchantment, desire—too many things to enumerate.

Remember the chapter that comes after Josie and Mayne marry? Mayne thinks Josie has been ravished by the despicable Thurman, and under those circumstances, he makes no move to consummate their marriage. Josie tries to tell him the truth—that she saved herself—and fails. So she retires to her room.

And that’s when Eloisa weaves in the longest reference to one of Shakespeare’s plays that I’ve recognized: the woods behind Mayne’s house clearly transform into the enchanted forest, the setting of the play.

                       
Beyond the railing the garden looked magical and rather frightening, as if it were a place where wishes came true and fairies danced.

                            
“Ridiculous,” Josie whispered to herself.

                            
The moon was so bright that it was almost like daylight, except that daylight is a bright amber, and moonlight is a wilder, shimmering light. The whole lawn looked as if it were underwater . . . The little grove looked like a fairy city, a fairy forest, stretching up from the lawn to a sky studded with stars. . . .

                            
It should have been frightening, she thought. She never believed in fairies, after all, not even when she was small. Some part of her still didn’t believe in them, and never would, not until she was face-to-face with an elfish creature. Preferably with wings.

Pleasure for Pleasure

Josie runs across the lawn and flashes of light catch her eye, which turn out to be glass balls hanging from a tree that catch moon glow—the ornaments that Mayne maintains in memory of his Aunt Cecily, who lived in a tower and believed in fairies.

                       
Her husband was a man known to have slept with most of the married women in the
ton
. . . was he a man to have a fairy wood in his backyard? His fairies would be small lascivious nymphs, playfellows of Bacchus.

                            
The inside of the woods beckoned like a dark dream. There were early roses growing somewhere; she could smell their faint, rather ragged smell. Their perfume beckoned too, and so without another glance back at the sleeping house, Josie drifted into the wood, holding her drop of moonglow in her hand.

Pleasure for Pleasure

If you go back and reread the chapters that follow, in which Mayne and Josie consummate their marriage, you’ll see that it all takes place in Shakespeare’s magical wood.

                       
“What if I were a fairy queen?” she said.

                            
“What then?”

                            
“I would command you to stay. Out of this wood do not desire to go. Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.”

                            
“I feel a donkey’s head descending onto my shoulders,” he muttered. But he was walking after her.

Pleasure for Pleasure

If you’re reading some of these Shakespeare quotes for the first time, you might be interested to know that Eloisa first encountered Shakespeare through romance novels! For example, at one point in
The Taming of the Duke
, Josie distorts a line from
Twelfth Night
to express her dissatisfaction with her appearance: “
Item, two lips, indifferent red, item, two gray eyes, item, one face as round as a pumpkin.
” Eloisa told me while she often teaches the correct quote (which says nothing about pumpkins), she first encountered those lines in the delicious novel by Georgette Heyer,
Venetia:
“If you haven’t read
Venetia
, run to the nearest store! It’s her sexiest, to my mind.”

One aspect of the novels that many people may not understand is that Eloisa quotes widely from all sorts of poetry and drama, not just those by Shakespeare. She feels it’s very important not to simply drop verse into the play—it has to be useful, the way Josie’s misquote of
Twelfth Night
expresses her state of mind about herself. Returning to Josie, in
Pleasure for Pleasure
, she quotes the poet Andrew Marvell to Mayne, teasing him by saying that if he had “world enough and time,” he would have seduced most of the women in London.

Mayne correctly identifies that poem as Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” The poem is a particularly beautiful seduction poem written from a man begging his beloved to be less “coy,” or chaste. “If we had world enough and time,” he writes, “this coyness, lady, were no crime.” But since “time’s winged chariot” draws near, he wishes that she would give in to him now, rather than preserving her virginity.

This is an example of a poem lending itself to a lively discussion between two characters that makes a serious point (at least, from Josie’s point of view); Mayne has spent too much of his life seducing beautiful women.

Another important use of poetry comes when Tess and Lucius trade lines from Catullus, a Roman poet. Eloisa says that whenever she teaches Catullus, students are stunned by the frank way he talks about love and sex. He was an upper-class Roman who rebelled against his parents by becoming a poet, and even as a poet he was considered fairly outrageous because he used colloquial language in his verse, and talked mostly of love. (Well, love and sex.) Bringing Catullus’s poetry into the mix allows Tess and Lucius to have a far more daring conversation than they could otherwise.

It also needs to be said, though, that some of Eloisa’s literary references simply serve as “Easter eggs,” gifts to readers who happen to catch a literary reference. For example, in
The Taming of the Duke
, Rafe says that he received a remarkably tedious letter from an old school friend, Yates, who is obsessed with a performance of
Lovers’ Vows
. This is a tribute to Jane Austen’s
Mansfield Park
, where a character named Yates is obsessed with
Lovers’ Vows
.

Obviously, I didn’t catch that reference, and likely most of you didn’t as well. But Jane Austen devotees likely squealed with delight. Eloisa says that she often borrows from poetry of the time. Hellgate’s flamboyant language pilfers from love letters written by various contemporaries, including Napoleon himself, and a French actress named Sarah Bernhardt. Eloisa highly recommends the anthology
Love Letters: An Anthology of Passion
, edited by Michelle Lovric.

The most extended literary reference in the series is to Christmas pantomimes, in
The Taming of the Duke
, so I decided to find more information about this genre, which is still popular in England but not performed in America.

                       
All in all, this Christmas pantomime was just as exuberant, delightful, and beloved as it had been the last six years.

The Taming of the Duke

Pantomimes are theatre performances with elaborate stage scenes in which most of the actors are cross-dressed (men as women), and the audience is expected to actively participate. It is hard to pin down an exact definition for pantomimes, but my favorite is from an article in the
Los Angeles Times
: “traditional elements of panto, including much music, naughty double-entendres, and, of course, plenty of over-the-top, Monty Python-esque drag, all loosely supported by the framework of a classic fairy tale.”

One of the first pantomimes
performed in England, entitled
The Loves of Mars and Venus
, was staged in 1702 with great success. Thereafter, the Christmas pantomime became a traditional British entertainment, and in
The Taming of the Duke
we learn it’s a tradition at the Holbrook Theatre too. Eloisa manages to weave an explanation of the structure of the show into her text, for all her readers outside Britain who’ve never heard of pantos. Griselda has an idea for a performance that can be put on in their private theatre.

                       
“What about a Christmas pantomime? Everyone loves a pantomime, and if the caliber of our acting isn’t all that it could be, it certainly won’t be noticed in a pantomime.”

                            
“You mean a proper pantomime, with a farce and—”

                            
“Precisely! It suits us perfectly. All the parts are generally taken by men, but we can give one female role to this young person from London. She can play a princess or something. I’m sure she’ll be happy if we find an ostentatious costume.”

The Taming of the Duke

Eloisa clearly did some
extensive research about pantos (or perhaps Franzeca deserves the praise). This quote is actually Rafe acting as his brother Gabe when he takes Imogen to a performance.

                       
[Imogen] couldn’t help but be cheered by the pantomime. “Will it be
Cinderella
?” she asked. “My sisters and I read about the play in
Ackermann’s Repository
when we were living in Scotland.”

                            
“Very likely,” Gabe [Rafe] said. “It is the most popular panto, I believe. I saw it when it first appeared on Drury Lane . . . ten years ago that must have been.”

The Taming of the Duke

Since
The Taming of the Duke
is dated 1817, Rafe could have certainly seen the pantomime on the Drury Lane stage, although he’s a few years off.
Cinderella
, also called
The Little Glass Slippe
r, first debuted at Drury Lane Theatre in 1804.

The panto is important to the plot of
The Taming of the Duke
; Eloisa was weaving together questions of identity and disguise, as discussed earlier in this book. But she also told me that she used the performance of the panto that Imogen and Rafe attend as a way of indicating that Imogen is finally ready to put her mourning aside and enter real life again—with Rafe at her side.

                       
Gradually the show became more and more boisterous. Imogen’s favorite character was called the Widow Trankey. She kept prancing onto the stage and
commenting on Cinderella’s terrible manners and her long nose (for in truth, one could not say in all honesty that the man playing Cinderella had precisely delicate features).

                            
By the time Widow Trankey had decided that the ugly stepsisters were a terrible lot, and really ought to be disciplined—and she was the woman to do it, since Cinderella’s stepmother had failed in the task—Imogen was laughing helplessly every time she opened her mouth.

                            
Finally Widow Trankey announced that the audience needed to hear about what happened to her the night before, a tale that she would sing to them. “
I went to the Alehouse as an honest Woman should
—” she sang.

                            
And to Imogen’s astonishment, the audience uniformly opened their mouths and roared “So you should!”

                            
“
And a Knave followed after, as you know Knaves would
,” she said, swishing her skirts in a flirtatious manner.

                            
“So he would!” roared the audience, and Imogen shouted it too.

The Taming of the Duke