The Garden of Proserpina

1
POSSESSION Chapter 1 Themes and Plot
2
The Garden of Proserpina

• Excerpt from poem by Randolph Henry Ash, the
  Victorian writer researched by Roland
• Contains seminal elements of book
• The serpent (Melusina) and other symbols
• The connection between myth, legend, history and
  truth (They are and were there At the old
  worlds rim dozed and waited through eternity)
• A vision of an earthly Paradise like the one
  the two Victorian lovers (and their 20th century
  researchers) will eventually visit in Yorkshire

3
Chapter One - Plot

• September 1986.
• Roland Michell, part-time research assistant to
  Prof. Blackadder, is in the Reading Room of the
  London Library. He loves this place because it is
  full of history and literature and because R.H.
  Ash himself came here to read.
• Hes got R. H. Ashs personal copy of Vicos
  Principj di Scienza Nuova, which he is examining
  in the hope of finding marginalia showing that
  this work was one of the sources of Ashs poem.
  He is excited at holding the book in his hands.
• The book is very old and dusty it is clear that
  nobody has touched it for a very long time,
  perhaps since it came to the library.

4
Plot - 2

• As Roland opens the book, several pieces of paper
  fall out, covered in Ashs handwriting.
• Roland requests and obtains permission to study
  them by presenting his credentials (Blackadder
  has been editing Ashs Complete Works since
  1951), on condition that he does not disturb
  their chronology and reports back on anything
  interesting.
• After a few hours, he finds what he thinks is
  the relevant passage in Vico, who had looked
  for historical fact in the poetic metaphors of
  myth and legend (putting them together was his
  new science).
• Roland compares Ashs test with the translation
  and makes notes on an index card.

5
Rolands notes on Vico

• Ears of corn were called apples of gold (when
  metallic gold was still unknown)
• The apples brought back from Hesperia by Hercules
  must have been grain
• The Gallic Hercules chains men by the ears with
  links of this gold (a myth concerning the fields)
• Hercules was consequently the Deity to propitiate
  in order to find treasures
• Proserpine (or Ceres) was carried off to the
  underworld
• In Virgils poem, the golden bough that Aeneas
  carries into the Inferno or Underworld was made
  of this golden apple

6
Different interpretations of the figure of
Proserpine

• Corn, the origin of commerce and community (Vico)
• Victorian reflection of religious doubt and
  meditation on the myths of Resurrection (Ash,
  according to some)
• The personification of History itself in its
  early mythical days (Blackadders idea of Ashs
  vision)
• Ash describes her as gold-skinned in the gloom,
• also grain-golden and bound with golden links
• Roland wonders if she could represent the
  ephemeral individual or the Species, that dies
  not

7
Discovery of the Letters

• Roland is already reluctant to share this new
  treasure with Blackadder when he discovers two
  folded sheets of writing paper
• They contain two versions of the same letter,
  both incomplete, written in Ashs hand and
  addressed to a Dear Madam who goes out in company
  very little
• The letters speak of a conversation between the
  two that the poet enjoyed very much and is eager
  to renew
• The conversation took place during a breakfast
  offered to a group of people by Crabb Robinson

8
Difference between the Letters

• The 1st letter is shorter and Ash is more
  emotional and direct, but is in any case careful
  not to show that he presumes the woman shares his
  same urgency
• In the 2nd letter, Ash is more controlled and
  tones down his enthusiasm
• our extraordinary conversation becomes pleasant
  and unexpected I have thought of nothing else
  becomes little else
• He does not speak of the rarity of finding such
  ready sympathy, such wit and judgment together,
  but talks at length about Crabb and the poets and
  undergraduates and mathematical professors and
  political thinkers at his table, a more neutral
  subject
• He changes I feel, I know with a certainty that
  cannot be the result of folly or misapprehension,
  that you and I must speak again to Is there any
  way in which it can be resumed, more privately
  and at more leisure?

9
Difference between the letters/2

• In the 2nd letter, he asks questions involving
  her or both of them (Is there any way? Did you
  not find it as strange as I did? We did
  understand each other uncommonly well, did we
  not? Or is this perhaps a product of the
  over-excited brain?) instead of making emphatic
  personal statements of his own (It has not often
  been given to me as a poet I write with a strong
  sense of necessityI feel, I know)
• He eliminates must and uses can

10
Difference between the letters/3

• In version 2, he balances his egoistical mutter
  his excitement at her sensitive understanding of
  his works - by showing an interest in her works
• He compliments her on the superiority of her fine
  ear and finer taste and adds that she is wise and
  learned
• He encourages her to begin her grand Fairy Topic
• He suggests she consider Vicos idea that the
  ancient gods and later heroes are
  personifications of the fates and aspirations of
  the people rising in figures from the common mind
• He tries to persuade her to come out to meet him.

11
Roland Takes Possession

• Roland is profoundly shocked but also thrilled
• He immediately contextualises the period (after
  1856) and decides to reconstruct the breakfast
  party organised by the London University
  professor
• He knows that Robinsons papers, including his
  diary, are kept in Dr. Williamss Library in
  Gordon Square
• He has no idea who the mysterious woman and her
  Fairy Topic were
• He is eager to discover if the correspondence
  continued or not and wonders what jewels of
  information it might contain about a man who
  lived a quiet and exemplary married life for
  forty years
• Roland does something completely
  uncharacteristic he slips the letters into his
  own book, finishes his work and leaves the
  library with the letters in his possession.