Francis Quarles, Emblems, and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement

Emblematic Art and Imagery

"In Occasionem"

The structure uses a question-and-answer format. The lady depicted is called “Occasio Calvata” (The Bald Opportunity/Passion). This image is part of a political pamphlet where the central idea is repeated consistently. The designs are repetitive: the image is surrounded by a frame, followed by the text. The woman in the image resembles a Venus figure.

"Pulchritudo sine fructu"

In this image, we see a tree—a cypress—in the middle of a hill. There are more hills behind it. One of the distant hills features a structure resembling a coliseum, and further back are more hills and mountains. They appear to be located on the coast. In the sky, we can observe only one cloud and four birds.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Founding and Context

The Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by several artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, and Holman Hunt.

They are called "Pre-Raphaelite" because Raphael was considered the highest peak of artistic achievement. He was known for his ability to combine color, drawing, mythology, and religion.

Core Principles

The Brotherhood adhered to the following principles:

• To have genuine ideas to express.
• To study nature attentively to learn how to express these ideas (they always used models to represent their paintings, never relying solely on imagination).
• To sympathize with what is direct, serious, and heartfelt in previous art.
• To produce good paintings.

Francis Quarles and Metaphysical Poetry

Book 5, Emblem VIII

In the image, we see a river and a human soul trapped within a skeleton. The accompanying epistle does not appear in Latin.

A conceit is an extended metaphor that sustains the same idea—a never-ending metaphor. In this case, the central conceit is the human soul trapped in the prison of death, represented by the skeleton. This concept shows a similitude with Shakespearean rhyme.

The soul is likened to a child, and the body is the skeleton that traps the soul. The body is the prison of the soul. The great demon leading to the corruption of the soul is often identified as sex and the great desires of the body.

The language of religion is often based on suffering—suffering required to abandon worldly desires and dedicate oneself to faith. This promotes the repulsion of the body and the cult of the soul. The poem uses complex language, characteristic of metaphysical poetry, and includes the repetition of an image, such as the use of "bank language."

The adult being corrupts the innocence of the soul. William Blake based some of his poems on Quarles’s work.