Curiosity and Reality

The Context and Interpretation of a Seventeenth-century Image

Bibliographic Data

ID4494280
AuthorsSarah Barber (0000-0003-0997-4891, corresponding author), Barber
Year2010
Volume70
Issue1
Pages21-46
Publication date2010-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory Workshop Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/hwj/dbq021
OpenAlexW2078318216
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited15

This article traces the varied uses made of a single woodcut image over the course of 350 years. Its repeated issue, first in interregnum tracts – ostensibly newsbooks – in 1644, 1648 and 1651, from which it was archived by picture libraries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, led to its publication in schools‘ textbooks in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries and to widespread use by teachers throughout Britain. In the course of its diverse deployment, interpretations of what it depicts have ranged widely. In the earliest depiction which the author has managed to trace, it illustrated a story of post-partum rape by detachments of French soldiers under Prince Rupert's command; subsequently, the image was slightly doctored, tailoring it to illustrate tales of Henry Marten's ‘Leveller’ troops; and finally in the Commonwealth period, it formed part of the ‘anti-Ranter literature published following the Blasphemy Act. The events depicted were reputed to have taken place in Dorset, Leicestershire and York respectively. The disparate employment of the image in the seventeenth century points to the interpretative interdependence of image and text, and makes possible a discussion of the nature of news – propaganda or reportage; ‘curiosity and reality’ as a contemporary journalist had it – in the depiction of truth and fiction when recounting violence and criminality.

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Context (archaeology) · Curiosity · Depiction · Iconography · Interpretation (philosophy) · Literature · Period (music) · Woodcut · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Joseph Conrad and Literature · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy · Psychology

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