Literature In The Light Of The Emblem

The literature of the 16th and 17th centuries was informed by the symbolic thought embodied in the mixed art form of emblems. This study explores the relationship between the emblem and the literature of England and Germany during the period.

This study draws a new picture of the invention of the emblem book, and discusses the textual and pictorial means that were developed in order to transmit knowledge, from Alciato to Vaenius, with special emphasis on the emblem commentary and natural history.

The emblem was big business in early-modern Europe, used extensively not only in printed books and broadsheets, but also to decorate pottery, metalware, furniture, glass and windows and numerous other domestic, devotional and political objects. At its most basic level simply a combination of symbolic visual image and texts, an emblem is a hybrid composed of words and picture. However, as this book demonstrates, understanding the precise and often multiple meaning, intention and message emblems conveyed can prove a remarkably slippery process. In this book, Peter Daly draws upon many years’ research to reflect upon the recent upsurge in scholarly interest in, and rediscovery of, emblems following years of relative neglect. Beginning by considering some of the seldom asked, but important, questions that the study of emblems raises, including the importance of the emblem, the truth value of emblems, and the transmission of knowledge through emblems, the book then moves on to investigate more closely-focussed aspects such as the role of mnemonics, mottoes and visual rhetoric. The volume concludes with a review of some perhaps inadequately considered issues such as the role of Jesuits (who had a role in the publication of about a quarter of all known emblem books), and questions such as how these hybrid constructs were actually read and interpreted. Drawing upon a database containing records of 6,514 books of emblems and imprese, this study suggests new ways for scholars to approach important questions that have not yet been satisfactorily broached in the standard works on emblems.

This study examines representations of early modern female consorts and regnants via extra-literary emblematics such as paintings, jewelry, miniature portraits, carvings, placards, masques, funerary monuments, and imprese.

Emblems—pictorial designs with accompanying mottoes and epigrams— helped to shape virtually every form of verbal and visual communication in the West during the sixteenth and seventh centuries. A recent re-awakening of scholarly interest in the emblem has brought to light the difficulty of locating and consulting the unorganized mass of available material. Recognizing the need for a large-scale systematic index to the emblem, the editor organized a symposium at McGill University to discuss the possibilities of preparing such an index. The resulting papers by six symposium participants— Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Peter M. Daly, Peter Erb, G. Richard Dimler, Lorelei Robins, and Alan Young—contribute to our knowledge of the emblems of Peacham and Corrozet, the Dutch love emblems, the Jesuit emblem, and emblems used in books of mediation. The essays also discuss the problems and procedures involved in preparing an Index Emblematicus, a work which would serve scholars working in the fields of literature, art, culture, religion, history, and the languages. The volume is richly illustrated with over forty emblem reproductions.