Talk:Francis Quarles

Untitled
A good entry, but unbalanced. Why are the illustrations termed "grotesque"? A less judgemental, more descriptive characterization needed. (Yes, grotesque can have a purely descriptive meaning, but the pejorative connotation is hard to escape.)

It should also be made clear that Quarles' emblems remained highly popular for two hundred years, in a series of reprints (frequently with new illustrations) stretching down to the 1860s. This is to say that Quarles emblems may be judged to have been very good religious emblems. They may not be to our taste, but that's not the point of an encyclopedia entry.

Quarles' emblems were indeed mocked by the literary elite of the eighteenth century, but that fact should be stated as a fact, not as an opportunity to join with the critics in dismissing the work. Indeed, their negative critical judgement tells us rather more about the eighteenth century literary elite -- not just its taste, but its cultural project of cutting down traditional forms of religious piety through satire -- than it does about the real value of Quarles' emblems.

A good scholar of the history of book publishing might examine the quality of the eighteenth century printings of Quarles to get a sense of whether they were really only popular among the poor or were (as I suspect) popular in middle-class circles. But poor or rich, this audience should not be termed "vulgar".