The Pulter Project
Poet in the MakingComparison Tool
Facsimile of manuscript: Photographs provided by University of Leeds, Brotherton Collection
The bee was a familiar subject of early modern emblems, frequently used as a model of ordered government (see Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber [Padua, 1621], emblem 149) or successful, interdependent economy (see Geoffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [London, 1585], pages 200–201). One seventeenth-century compendium on insects, compiled from the writings of several natural historians, including Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner, and Thomas Moffet, featured a beehive on its frontispiece and described bees as “patterns and precedents of political and economical virtues” (The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures [London, 1658]).
Pulter’s transformation of the bee into an Amazonian figure, however, is more unusual and even a bit contentious. The comparison enhances Pulter’s interrogation of gender in this poem (see my headnote) and connects this emblem to some of the manuscript’s more explicit political poetry.
This is our first glimpse of the poem’s narrator, often a much more pervasive presence in Pulter’s poems. In early poems in the manuscript, like Made When I Was Sick, 1647 [Poem 31], the entire poem revolves around the narrator’s experience and thoughts. The sparse, late use of the first-person pronoun here, though, is more typical of Pulter’s emblem poems, a few of which never reference the poet directly. See, for instance, Raccoons (Emblem 21) [Poem 86].
It’s worth noting that this first reference to the poet (one of only two in the poem) is also connected to the garden and the all-female community of the poem’s first half. Perhaps even more interesting, the narrator’s garden is the site of the bee’s demise. We learn the story of the bee and the snail in the next few lines and we might even imagine that the poet is a first-hand witness, watching the snail “slid[e]” out of the tulip in the morning while the bee “fainting lie[s]” (line 35).
This comparison starts Pulter’s catalogue of male military leaders, rulers, and thinkers—four in total by the poem’s end. As I noted in my headnote, this cast of characters marks a significant gender shift from the female-centric opening of the poem. But this phrase is also formally noteworthy. Rather than using just one or two comparisons to illustrate her point, Pulter here offers an extensive catalogue of examples: “so stout Biron” (line 39), “when Belisarius” (line 41), “so miscre’nt Bajazeth” (line 43), and “when wise Callisthenes” (line 47). The anaphoric “so’s” and “when’s” of these final lines, very typical of Pulter’s emblems, signal her strategic accumulation of these examples. Again, how might Pulter be using her poems to explore how poetic language signifies? See my headnote for more on this question.
Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, was a sixteenth-century French military leader eventually involved in conspiracies against the French crown. He was jailed and beheaded for treason in 1602. Alice Eardley cites George Chapman’s play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France (1608) as one possible source for Pulter’s anecdote here. Biron was “notorious for his arrogance,” Eardley notes, and in Chapman’s play his sword is removed from him, “treatment he vigorously resists.” See Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, Ed. Alice Eardley, (Toronto: Iter, 2014), 263 n.513.
The bee was a familiar subject of early modern emblems, frequently used as a model of ordered government (see Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber [Padua, 1621], emblem 149) or successful, interdependent economy (see Geoffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [London, 1585], pages 200–201). One seventeenth-century compendium on insects, compiled from the writings of several natural historians, including Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner, and Thomas Moffet, featured a beehive on its frontispiece and described bees as “patterns and precedents of political and economical virtues” (The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures [London, 1658]).
Pulter’s transformation of the bee into an Amazonian figure, however, is more unusual and even a bit contentious. The comparison enhances Pulter’s interrogation of gender in this poem (see my headnote) and connects this emblem to some of the manuscript’s more explicit political poetry.
This is our first glimpse of the poem’s narrator, often a much more pervasive presence in Pulter’s poems. In early poems in the manuscript, like Made When I Was Sick, 1647 [Poem 31], the entire poem revolves around the narrator’s experience and thoughts. The sparse, late use of the first-person pronoun here, though, is more typical of Pulter’s emblem poems, a few of which never reference the poet directly. See, for instance, Raccoons (Emblem 21) [Poem 86].
It’s worth noting that this first reference to the poet (one of only two in the poem) is also connected to the garden and the all-female community of the poem’s first half. Perhaps even more interesting, the narrator’s garden is the site of the bee’s demise. We learn the story of the bee and the snail in the next few lines and we might even imagine that the poet is a first-hand witness, watching the snail “slid[e]” out of the tulip in the morning while the bee “fainting lie[s]” (line 35).
This comparison starts Pulter’s catalogue of male military leaders, rulers, and thinkers—four in total by the poem’s end. As I noted in my headnote, this cast of characters marks a significant gender shift from the female-centric opening of the poem. But this phrase is also formally noteworthy. Rather than using just one or two comparisons to illustrate her point, Pulter here offers an extensive catalogue of examples: “so stout Biron” (line 39), “when Belisarius” (line 41), “so miscre’nt Bajazeth” (line 43), and “when wise Callisthenes” (line 47). The anaphoric “so’s” and “when’s” of these final lines, very typical of Pulter’s emblems, signal her strategic accumulation of these examples. Again, how might Pulter be using her poems to explore how poetic language signifies? See my headnote for more on this question.
Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, was a sixteenth-century French military leader eventually involved in conspiracies against the French crown. He was jailed and beheaded for treason in 1602. Alice Eardley cites George Chapman’s play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France (1608) as one possible source for Pulter’s anecdote here. Biron was “notorious for his arrogance,” Eardley notes, and in Chapman’s play his sword is removed from him, “treatment he vigorously resists.” See Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, Ed. Alice Eardley, (Toronto: Iter, 2014), 263 n.513.
The bee was a familiar subject of early modern emblems, frequently used as a model of ordered government (see Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber [Padua, 1621], emblem 149) or successful, interdependent economy (see Geoffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [London, 1585], pages 200–201). One seventeenth-century compendium on insects, compiled from the writings of several natural historians, including Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner, and Thomas Moffet, featured a beehive on its frontispiece and described bees as “patterns and precedents of political and economical virtues” (The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures [London, 1658]).
Pulter’s transformation of the bee into an Amazonian figure, however, is more unusual and even a bit contentious. The comparison enhances Pulter’s interrogation of gender in this poem (see my headnote) and connects this emblem to some of the manuscript’s more explicit political poetry.
This is our first glimpse of the poem’s narrator, often a much more pervasive presence in Pulter’s poems. In early poems in the manuscript, like Made When I Was Sick, 1647 [Poem 31], the entire poem revolves around the narrator’s experience and thoughts. The sparse, late use of the first-person pronoun here, though, is more typical of Pulter’s emblem poems, a few of which never reference the poet directly. See, for instance, Raccoons (Emblem 21) [Poem 86].
It’s worth noting that this first reference to the poet (one of only two in the poem) is also connected to the garden and the all-female community of the poem’s first half. Perhaps even more interesting, the narrator’s garden is the site of the bee’s demise. We learn the story of the bee and the snail in the next few lines and we might even imagine that the poet is a first-hand witness, watching the snail “slid[e]” out of the tulip in the morning while the bee “fainting lie[s]” (line 35).
This comparison starts Pulter’s catalogue of male military leaders, rulers, and thinkers—four in total by the poem’s end. As I noted in my headnote, this cast of characters marks a significant gender shift from the female-centric opening of the poem. But this phrase is also formally noteworthy. Rather than using just one or two comparisons to illustrate her point, Pulter here offers an extensive catalogue of examples: “so stout Biron” (line 39), “when Belisarius” (line 41), “so miscre’nt Bajazeth” (line 43), and “when wise Callisthenes” (line 47). The anaphoric “so’s” and “when’s” of these final lines, very typical of Pulter’s emblems, signal her strategic accumulation of these examples. Again, how might Pulter be using her poems to explore how poetic language signifies? See my headnote for more on this question.
Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, was a sixteenth-century French military leader eventually involved in conspiracies against the French crown. He was jailed and beheaded for treason in 1602. Alice Eardley cites George Chapman’s play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France (1608) as one possible source for Pulter’s anecdote here. Biron was “notorious for his arrogance,” Eardley notes, and in Chapman’s play his sword is removed from him, “treatment he vigorously resists.” See Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, Ed. Alice Eardley, (Toronto: Iter, 2014), 263 n.513.
The bee was a familiar subject of early modern emblems, frequently used as a model of ordered government (see Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber [Padua, 1621], emblem 149) or successful, interdependent economy (see Geoffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [London, 1585], pages 200–201). One seventeenth-century compendium on insects, compiled from the writings of several natural historians, including Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner, and Thomas Moffet, featured a beehive on its frontispiece and described bees as “patterns and precedents of political and economical virtues” (The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures [London, 1658]).
Pulter’s transformation of the bee into an Amazonian figure, however, is more unusual and even a bit contentious. The comparison enhances Pulter’s interrogation of gender in this poem (see my headnote) and connects this emblem to some of the manuscript’s more explicit political poetry.
This is our first glimpse of the poem’s narrator, often a much more pervasive presence in Pulter’s poems. In early poems in the manuscript, like Made When I Was Sick, 1647 [Poem 31], the entire poem revolves around the narrator’s experience and thoughts. The sparse, late use of the first-person pronoun here, though, is more typical of Pulter’s emblem poems, a few of which never reference the poet directly. See, for instance, Raccoons (Emblem 21) [Poem 86].
It’s worth noting that this first reference to the poet (one of only two in the poem) is also connected to the garden and the all-female community of the poem’s first half. Perhaps even more interesting, the narrator’s garden is the site of the bee’s demise. We learn the story of the bee and the snail in the next few lines and we might even imagine that the poet is a first-hand witness, watching the snail “slid[e]” out of the tulip in the morning while the bee “fainting lie[s]” (line 35).
This comparison starts Pulter’s catalogue of male military leaders, rulers, and thinkers—four in total by the poem’s end. As I noted in my headnote, this cast of characters marks a significant gender shift from the female-centric opening of the poem. But this phrase is also formally noteworthy. Rather than using just one or two comparisons to illustrate her point, Pulter here offers an extensive catalogue of examples: “so stout Biron” (line 39), “when Belisarius” (line 41), “so miscre’nt Bajazeth” (line 43), and “when wise Callisthenes” (line 47). The anaphoric “so’s” and “when’s” of these final lines, very typical of Pulter’s emblems, signal her strategic accumulation of these examples. Again, how might Pulter be using her poems to explore how poetic language signifies? See my headnote for more on this question.
Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, was a sixteenth-century French military leader eventually involved in conspiracies against the French crown. He was jailed and beheaded for treason in 1602. Alice Eardley cites George Chapman’s play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France (1608) as one possible source for Pulter’s anecdote here. Biron was “notorious for his arrogance,” Eardley notes, and in Chapman’s play his sword is removed from him, “treatment he vigorously resists.” See Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, Ed. Alice Eardley, (Toronto: Iter, 2014), 263 n.513.
The bee was a familiar subject of early modern emblems, frequently used as a model of ordered government (see Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber [Padua, 1621], emblem 149) or successful, interdependent economy (see Geoffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [London, 1585], pages 200–201). One seventeenth-century compendium on insects, compiled from the writings of several natural historians, including Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner, and Thomas Moffet, featured a beehive on its frontispiece and described bees as “patterns and precedents of political and economical virtues” (The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures [London, 1658]).
Pulter’s transformation of the bee into an Amazonian figure, however, is more unusual and even a bit contentious. The comparison enhances Pulter’s interrogation of gender in this poem (see my headnote) and connects this emblem to some of the manuscript’s more explicit political poetry.
This is our first glimpse of the poem’s narrator, often a much more pervasive presence in Pulter’s poems. In early poems in the manuscript, like Made When I Was Sick, 1647 [Poem 31], the entire poem revolves around the narrator’s experience and thoughts. The sparse, late use of the first-person pronoun here, though, is more typical of Pulter’s emblem poems, a few of which never reference the poet directly. See, for instance, Raccoons (Emblem 21) [Poem 86].
It’s worth noting that this first reference to the poet (one of only two in the poem) is also connected to the garden and the all-female community of the poem’s first half. Perhaps even more interesting, the narrator’s garden is the site of the bee’s demise. We learn the story of the bee and the snail in the next few lines and we might even imagine that the poet is a first-hand witness, watching the snail “slid[e]” out of the tulip in the morning while the bee “fainting lie[s]” (line 35).
This comparison starts Pulter’s catalogue of male military leaders, rulers, and thinkers—four in total by the poem’s end. As I noted in my headnote, this cast of characters marks a significant gender shift from the female-centric opening of the poem. But this phrase is also formally noteworthy. Rather than using just one or two comparisons to illustrate her point, Pulter here offers an extensive catalogue of examples: “so stout Biron” (line 39), “when Belisarius” (line 41), “so miscre’nt Bajazeth” (line 43), and “when wise Callisthenes” (line 47). The anaphoric “so’s” and “when’s” of these final lines, very typical of Pulter’s emblems, signal her strategic accumulation of these examples. Again, how might Pulter be using her poems to explore how poetic language signifies? See my headnote for more on this question.
Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, was a sixteenth-century French military leader eventually involved in conspiracies against the French crown. He was jailed and beheaded for treason in 1602. Alice Eardley cites George Chapman’s play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France (1608) as one possible source for Pulter’s anecdote here. Biron was “notorious for his arrogance,” Eardley notes, and in Chapman’s play his sword is removed from him, “treatment he vigorously resists.” See Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, Ed. Alice Eardley, (Toronto: Iter, 2014), 263 n.513.
The bee was a familiar subject of early modern emblems, frequently used as a model of ordered government (see Andrea Alciato, Emblematum liber [Padua, 1621], emblem 149) or successful, interdependent economy (see Geoffrey Whitney, Choice of Emblemes [London, 1585], pages 200–201). One seventeenth-century compendium on insects, compiled from the writings of several natural historians, including Edward Wotton, Conrad Gesner, and Thomas Moffet, featured a beehive on its frontispiece and described bees as “patterns and precedents of political and economical virtues” (The Theatre of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures [London, 1658]).
Pulter’s transformation of the bee into an Amazonian figure, however, is more unusual and even a bit contentious. The comparison enhances Pulter’s interrogation of gender in this poem (see my headnote) and connects this emblem to some of the manuscript’s more explicit political poetry.
This is our first glimpse of the poem’s narrator, often a much more pervasive presence in Pulter’s poems. In early poems in the manuscript, like Made When I Was Sick, 1647 [Poem 31], the entire poem revolves around the narrator’s experience and thoughts. The sparse, late use of the first-person pronoun here, though, is more typical of Pulter’s emblem poems, a few of which never reference the poet directly. See, for instance, Raccoons (Emblem 21) [Poem 86].
It’s worth noting that this first reference to the poet (one of only two in the poem) is also connected to the garden and the all-female community of the poem’s first half. Perhaps even more interesting, the narrator’s garden is the site of the bee’s demise. We learn the story of the bee and the snail in the next few lines and we might even imagine that the poet is a first-hand witness, watching the snail “slid[e]” out of the tulip in the morning while the bee “fainting lie[s]” (line 35).
This comparison starts Pulter’s catalogue of male military leaders, rulers, and thinkers—four in total by the poem’s end. As I noted in my headnote, this cast of characters marks a significant gender shift from the female-centric opening of the poem. But this phrase is also formally noteworthy. Rather than using just one or two comparisons to illustrate her point, Pulter here offers an extensive catalogue of examples: “so stout Biron” (line 39), “when Belisarius” (line 41), “so miscre’nt Bajazeth” (line 43), and “when wise Callisthenes” (line 47). The anaphoric “so’s” and “when’s” of these final lines, very typical of Pulter’s emblems, signal her strategic accumulation of these examples. Again, how might Pulter be using her poems to explore how poetic language signifies? See my headnote for more on this question.
Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, was a sixteenth-century French military leader eventually involved in conspiracies against the French crown. He was jailed and beheaded for treason in 1602. Alice Eardley cites George Chapman’s play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France (1608) as one possible source for Pulter’s anecdote here. Biron was “notorious for his arrogance,” Eardley notes, and in Chapman’s play his sword is removed from him, “treatment he vigorously resists.” See Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda, Ed. Alice Eardley, (Toronto: Iter, 2014), 263 n.513.