Henryson, Robert | Felicity Riddy (essay date 1997)
Felicity Riddy (essay date 1997)
SOURCE: Riddy, Felicity. “‘Abject odious’: Feminine and Masculine in Henryson's Testament of Cresseid.” In The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray, edited by Helen Cooper and Sally Mapstone, pp. 229-48. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
[In this essay, Riddy compares The Testament of Cresseid with the anonymous painting “Les Amants trépassés,” and analyzes the symbolism and imagery of both works.]
In the cathedral museum in Strasbourg there is a late fifteenth-century painting attributed to an unknown Swabian Master called ‘Les Amants trépassés’. It depicts the dead lovers naked, standing side by side on what looks like a stone floor which dissolves into an impenetrably black background. Their bodies are already decomposing; through their emaciated flesh the bones are visible; the skin on their faces is pulled back so that they are almost grinning skulls. They...
[The entire page is 8236 words long]
Navigate
