AUGUST 3, 2012 · 9:35 PM
By Shepard Tenneson
[reposted 8/10/24].
A Source for Roseline?
Author and Rennes Group member Vi Marriott mention in her article “A Lost Page Recovered?” that Philippe de Chérisey likely had knowledge of Elizabethan playwrights started some wheels turning in my head. I note that the dramatist Thomas Lodge (c. 1558 to 1625) wrote Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie, printed in 1590, which was used as the basis for Shakespeare’s As You Like It.[1] Both plays have been called “Arcadian” in the pastoral romance sense of shepherds and shepherdesses. Lodge’s Rosalynde[2] was written on his voyage to the Canary Islands, which locale de Chérisey used as the background for most of the action in his novel Circuit and he apparently wrote several articles relating to the Canaries which are in The Secret Archives of the Priory of Sion. The connection with the Canary Islands is that, like the French Meridian “Rose Line”, the Canaries were also once the site of a meridian, and the west-most island of El Hierro is also called Isla del Meridiano (Island of the Meridian). Lodge’s Rosalynde took place in the Ardennes forest where Dagobert II was assassinated,[3] though Shakespeare turned it into the Forest of Arden[4] where there was a preceptory of the Knights Templar until the order was suppressed in 1312. It has been suggested that Shakespeare’s Arden was a combination of the classical “Arcadia” and the Biblical “Eden”. I notice on the first page of Lodge’s Rosalynd, he mentions “Sir IOHN (that with the Phenix knewe the tearme of his life was now expyred, and could with the Swanne[5] discouer his end by her songs)” which is similar to the Swan’s song Charlot and Anne speak of in the “Lost Page”. Perhaps others with a greater knowledge of Elizabethan playwrights than I could think of anything else that might relate.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arden,_Warwickshirehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardenneshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardennes_(horse)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_You_Like_Ithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_the_Devilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespearehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lodgehttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/756 (the text of Rosalynde)
[1] Rosalind in As You Like It is closer to Roseline, though the unseen Rosaline mentioned in Romeo & Juliet is one step closer still, and let’s not forget the Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost; both “Rosalines” are unattainable, like Charlot’s dead Roseline, which might have influenced his choice of the name, assuming that the character was fictional, or a pseudonym if real.
[2] Thomas Lodge also wrote a historical romance, The History of Robert, Second Duke of Normandy, surnamed Robert the Devil who is alluded to in de Chérisey’s novel Circuit (p. 91).
[3] Also, horses from the region were used by Godfrey de Bouillon in the Crusades, and the part of the area that extends into de Chérisey’s adopted country of Belgium contains the rock from which the horse Bayard jumped across the Meuse, which is alluded to in Le serpent rouge.
[4] The Forest of Arden is near Stratford-on-Avon. I note also that Shakespeare’s mother was Mary Arden.
[5] Shakespeare of course was called the Swan of Avon, and Anna Seward (who has been linked with the ShepherdessMonument inscription at Shugborough Hall) was called the Swan of Lichfield.
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