Maura (maura853) -
Very disappointing: a poorly developed treatment of what should have been a fascinating topic.
There is no faulting Amy Licence for her research: page after page, she lists ... everything. Everything and, quite literally, the kitchen sink. Pictures, possessions, and people, events, occasions and theatricals, humble and grand, building and landscapes -- anything visual that offers a glimpse of the Tudor world. (I gave up toward the end of the section on Sight.) But there's the problem, in my opinion -- it's just a list, a fairly random list of "things you see," presented without the context or analysis that would enable the reader to understand exactly how a Tudor-era individual would have seen something different from what we see today.
A woman's portrait depicts her heavily pregnant. Is this the image of a frightened girl, facing the very real possibility of dying in childbirth, and looking to leave one last memento of herself, for her family? Or is it a triumphant commemoration of the fact that she has fulfilled her Heavenly ordained destiny as a woman? Or ... is it just a picture? Could it be one of the above for one woman, and something completely different for another ... Dunno, because Licence doesn't seem to be able to make up her mind either -- she just tells us about a long list of pictures, as if they all fit neatly into a box labelled of Pregnant Tudor Girls ...
Licence's thesis is right there in the subtitle -- "how the Tudors experienced the world" -- but the best that she seems to be able to do with the overwhelming weight of evidence that she plods through, is to say "For the Tudors, life was an intensely physical experience ..." Umm, yeah -- you mean, no different from the lives of every person who has ever lived? Great, thanks for that.
I wanted fewer examples, and greater insight into a few well-chosen examples that would, as promised, help me to see, hear, smell, taste and feel the world as a Tudor individual would have done.
There is no faulting Amy Licence for her research: page after page, she lists ... everything. Everything and, quite literally, the kitchen sink. Pictures, possessions, and people, events, occasions and theatricals, humble and grand, building and landscapes -- anything visual that offers a glimpse of the Tudor world. (I gave up toward the end of the section on Sight.) But there's the problem, in my opinion -- it's just a list, a fairly random list of "things you see," presented without the context or analysis that would enable the reader to understand exactly how a Tudor-era individual would have seen something different from what we see today.
A woman's portrait depicts her heavily pregnant. Is this the image of a frightened girl, facing the very real possibility of dying in childbirth, and looking to leave one last memento of herself, for her family? Or is it a triumphant commemoration of the fact that she has fulfilled her Heavenly ordained destiny as a woman? Or ... is it just a picture? Could it be one of the above for one woman, and something completely different for another ... Dunno, because Licence doesn't seem to be able to make up her mind either -- she just tells us about a long list of pictures, as if they all fit neatly into a box labelled of Pregnant Tudor Girls ...
Licence's thesis is right there in the subtitle -- "how the Tudors experienced the world" -- but the best that she seems to be able to do with the overwhelming weight of evidence that she plods through, is to say "For the Tudors, life was an intensely physical experience ..." Umm, yeah -- you mean, no different from the lives of every person who has ever lived? Great, thanks for that.
I wanted fewer examples, and greater insight into a few well-chosen examples that would, as promised, help me to see, hear, smell, taste and feel the world as a Tudor individual would have done.
