{"id":"01KG8B0T09PHFDE46T926RAA4K","cid":"bafkreidnfwnxvgd3gpktycuqjw7stgagu5sl55h4hg7ygatmuufl5eqmem","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreic5s4b3pbxen3vwp5favubg64h6l3ufoy5poyl36hjlq3dqv5gxne","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0043.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769806521476-zafc2z62sz9","label":"02_venus_and_adonis_1905_facsimile_page_0043.jpg","page_number":43,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":521007,"text":"VENUS\nAND\nADONIS\n37\nwhich the legend's previous popularity attested, between the\ntale and the spirit of the times. A very early critic, the\nJesuit Robert Southwell, deplored, from the Christian point\nof view, the pagan frankness of < the first heir ' of Shake-\nspeare's 'invention '.\nStill finest wits are 'stilling Venus' rose,\nIn Paynim toyes the sweetest vaines are spent.\nBut the general tone of ingenuous approval may be gauged\nby Francis Meres' insistence in 15-98 that this and other of\nthe dramatist's poems proved that ' the sweete wittie soule of\nOvid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare '.\nNext year John Weever, in his enthusiastic sonnet in praise\nof < our honey-tongued Shakespeare ', declared that\nRose-cheek'd Adonis\nwith\nhis\namber\ntresses,\nFair\nfire-hot\nVenus charming him\nto love\nher\n,\nwere, with the other issue of his brain, children of Apollo\nby some heaven-born goddess. The university wit who\npenned about 1600 the academic plays of The Pilgrimage\nto Parnassus and T/je l^eturn from Parnassus voiced popular\nopinion when he wrote, 'Let this duncified world esteem\nof Spenser and Chaucer ; I'll worship sweet Mr. Shakespeare\nand to honour him will lay his Venus and Adonis under my\npillow.'In the seventeenth century there was a popular tendency\nto rank Venus and Adonis with improper literature and to\ninsist on its erotic tendency.* But the essential beauty of\n' Cf. Middleton's A mad 'world my masters (kjoS), where the jealous\nHarebrain, speaking of his newly-married wife, says, ' 1 have conveyed away\nall her wanton pamphlets, as Hero and Leander^ Venus and Adonis ; O, two\nluscious marrow-bone pies for a young married wife.' Richard Brathwaite, in\nThe English Geyttlevjoman (163 1), includes the poem in a list of books treating","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:55:21.475Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true,"width":1632},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG89K4X0DM39SSQK43XXG34R","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KG89JREDR8WY5QQGYR5FZRDY","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:55:22.377Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:55:25.348Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFH6ETXGRVD10WPNP3007D6"}}