O marvellous hive mind that is my flist

[gillo]

I am deep in The Essay currently, and working on a section about literary references. One I'm finding interesting is the heroine meeting the hero when he is on a horse - astride the mighty stallion, pulsing with power etcetc. Both Woolf and Holtby use it in the books I'm working on (Orlando and South Riding) but in interestingly different ways

Comments

[sartorresartus]

Is there not one in 'Return of the Native'? And I'm not sure but there might be one in Tess.

[megan_peta]

It's been a VERY long time since I read it, but Wuthering Heights? Is that the right time frame? The situation seems really familiar.

[altariel]

Can I signal boost this on my journal?

[gillo]

Please do! It's for an essay due on Monday, and I'm trying to tidy up the section on intertextuality in Orlando and South Riding, and I'd like to be able to point at more than Jane Eyre, which Holtby's character directly references anyway. It's such a cliché of romantic fiction that I know there must be other examples, but they have all popped out of my head. And the S&S example, I now realise, was in the film only. :-(

[altariel]

Posted. I also thought The Sheik must have something, but see the brilliant oursin is there already.

[gillo]

She is amazingly good at such things, as at so much else. Thank you.

[oxfordia]

Of course I'm not spot on but for a cynical reversal of the all-powerful male rider, there is DHL's St Mawr (Ah! Animal consciousness!). Rico is Lou's husband (see copy/paste below, courtesy of Gutenberg

[oursin]

And there's also Gerald forcing his mare to face the train under Gudrun's gaze in Women in Love:
Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab mare. He rode well and softly, pleased with the delicate quivering of the creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque, at least in Gudrun's eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whose long tail flowed on the air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up at the crossing to wait for the gate, looking down the railway for the approaching train. In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness, Gudrun liked to look at him. He was well-set and easy, his face with its warm tan showed up his whitish, coarse moustache, and his blue eyes were full of sharp light as he watched the distance

[gillo]

That could be useful - thanks.

[gillo]

Trust you to find a DHL link! Thanks.

[oursin]

It's just too late - 1932 - but in Have His Carcase Harriet Vane feels strangely moved by the thought of Lord Peter on horseback.

I suspect that the novels of Ethel M Dell would provide a rich hunting ground, and of course the famous popular cultural referent involving men mastering horses in the 1920s would be EM Hull's The Sheik (1919).

On a higher cultural level, I'm trying to recollect whether there are any Grandcourt/Gwendolen scenes in Daniel Deronda that don't also involve her being mounted and an excellent horsewoman.

[gillo]

It's a really common trope, I know. I've been pointed at a very useful article which might lead me to a useful book, but I am currently in Hitchin, staying with a friend and will not be able to get to the university library until Saturday.

It's only a minor point, but it's a useful one because Woolf and Holtby use the same thing, both clearly in an ultra-intertextual way, so it makes a useful chunk of the essay - but I must have the citationz!!!

Thank you.

[oursin]

Is there any way I can be of help? I'm very sorry if I missed out a citation.

Laura

[gillo]

Bless you for coming here to reply. It's not that you missed out a citation - I really enjoyed your post - it's just that the tutor doesn't like web citations and requires "real book" references as far as possible. Thanks to the wonderful people here and on FB I have now collected together enough material so I can discuss Woolf's silly incident and Holtby's metatextual take on it.

Thank you so much.