Talk:Frederick Rolfe

Photo of Tito Biondi
Who is this person, and what relevance does he have to the life of Rolfe? There is zero mention of him in the article. JackofOz 00:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Tito Biondi was one of the boys photographed by Rolfe. A picture of him along with ones of three other boys, all semi-nude, is included in the illustrations of Donald Weeks's book about Rolfe; "Corvo."

Meltingpot (talk) 14:56, 12 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Looks like a Roman boy that caught Fred's fancy: Haiduc 03:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I guessed as much already, but unless there's some connection made to Biondi in the text, it causes the reader to ask the question I asked above. There is a "British photographers" category at the bottom, but nowhere in the text is there any mention of Rolfe having anything to do with photography, apart from this one example of his work.  But this could have been a holiday snap for all we know.  Is he really a recognised "British photographer" in the professional sense?  Where are there any references to his body of photographic work?  Did he photograph boys and nothing else?  The questions just go on and on, but they are questions the article should be answering rather than creating in the minds of readers.  Another point is that the implication of this sole example is that, because he was homosexual, his primary focus as he went through life was in the male form.  That is a stereotype of gay behaviour that should be dead and buried by now.   JackofOz 04:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Tito Biondi was I think the model for 'Toto', the narrator of 'Stories Toto Told Me' and 'In His Own Image' but I can't check that right now. The poster of the picture ought to make clear the relevance in the article. Cenedi 11:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Right you are Cenedi, thanks. I think the version I have is from "American Modern Library ", so they may have changed the title for that release...--V. Joe 21:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Almost one year on, and this issue still hasn't been resolved. There's still no certainty as to who Tito Biondi was and why his photo is here. This says:
 * More important though was Stories Toto Told Me, published by John Lane on 27 September 1898. These tales were based on conversations Rolfe had with local peasant boys during his happy period with the Duchess Sforza-Cesarini in Italy years earlier, and had already appeared in The Yellow Book in 1895 and 1896. Lane reissued them as Bodley Booklets.

No mention of Tito there, or anywhere else I can find in Google, except for this article and its mirrors. I'm removing it. JackofOz 03:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC) JackofOz 03:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * One should not allow one's *limited* Googling skills to form the meter of objective reality. Anyway, here is a source:  Michael Matthew Kaylor, Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (Brno, CZ: Masaryk University Press, 2006), p. 94.  Rolfe's photograph is reproduced on that page, and the following caption is provided:


 * Portrait of Tito Biondi at Lake Nimi
 * Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo) (1860-1913)
 * Photograph, ca. 1890-92
 * Private collection


 * This book can be downloaded as a free, open-access PDF at, in case you would like to verify this detail.


 * Rolfe is indeed an important early photographer, as is also noted in the only other book on the English Uranians, Timothy d'Arch Smith, Love in Earnest: Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English "Uranian" Poets from 1889 to 1930 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 62:


 * In the first volume of the Studio [a respected journal on art topics published by Gleeson White] is printed an essay on the male nude in photography which was almost certainly written by White himself, revealing him as an expert in this form of art. In the course of the article, he printed a photograph of Cecil Castle, nude, lying on his stomach, taken by Baron Corvo.


 * Not to be too obnoxious ... but Google isn't everything! Welland R 08:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh indeed. And my Googling skills can always do with improving.  Thanks for the response.  The issue I was trying to focus on was not whether this information was right or wrong per se, but why our article should include (a) a disembodied reference to Tito Biondi, whose name is mentioned nowhere at all except in the caption to the photo, and (b) the category "British photographers", when nowhere was there anything about this facet of Rolfe's life.  It would be like including Bill Clinton in the category, say, "American mountaineers" but without saying a single word about his mountaineering activities in his article.  I hope you can understand where I was coming from, Welland R.  All I'm hoping for is for someone who has the requisite knowledge about Tito Biondi and Rolfe's photographics to come along and write something about them in the article.  Then, my work here will be done and I'll go off and trouble someone else.  :)  JackofOz 09:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That Tito Biondi was the original of Toto and that Rolfe acted as a professional, if mostly unsuccessful, photographer is well attested to in the cited biographies. Xxanthippe 09:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I just replaced the photo of Tito Biondi with one that is of higher quality ... especially important since Rolfe is here being considered as a "photographer." Welland R 09:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This tells who Tito Biondi was. PiCo (talk) 02:22, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Borgias
This article doesn't have a mention of his "History of the Borgias." I owned that book... --V. Joe 02:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

This is "Chronicles of the House of Borgia" and it has two mentions in the article. Cenedi 11:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The Quest for Corvo
Having read The Quest for Corvo, one thing I think should be mentioned on here (tactfully if possible) is Rolfe's querulous personality and tendency to fall out spectacularly with pretty much everyone who tried to help him and offer him food and board.

He lived in the era before the welfare state, and it must have been humiliating for him to have to rely on a succession of benefactors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meltingpot (talk • contribs) 10:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Posthumous Literary Reputation
Some excellent edits have recently made to this section. But it does seem implausible that either William Gerhardie or Evelyn Waugh were substantially influenced by Rolfe. Is there evidence? Xxanthippe (talk) 04:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC).

I was the original author of this section in Rolfe's entry. You were right to remove the Gerhardie and Waugh references, not because they were wrong but because hard evidence should be cited. Almost 40 years ago I interviewed Auberon Waugh and raised this with him. He confirmed that, particularly during the Oxford years, his father greatly admired Rolfe's Hadrian the Seventh. He was also very keen on Ronald Firbank's novels, and in my view Rolfe's influence on Waugh was channelled through Firbank, so that he was influenced at one remove, so to speak. Auberon also told me that when his father was a lonely schoolmaster, the school (Arnold House) at which he taught, and which he immortalised as Llanabba Castle in his first novel Decline and Fall, belonged to a nearby landowner R M Dawkins, who had known Rolfe well and had paid for him to travel to Venice. Waugh had been fascinated by Dawkins's stories of Rolfe's various failings and transgressions (Dawkins is mentioned in Stannard's first volume on Waugh p.114). As for Gerhardie, I read somewhere that Rolfe interested him greatly, but no longer recall the source. As for that notoriously vexed matter of defining modernism, I'm sure you are aware of all the debates and disagreements. Recent scholarship (for example, Max Saunders's Self-Impression) is focussing more and more on the pivotal part played by life-writing, particularly autobiographical fiction, and Rolfe played an important role in developing that form. It's a big subject, certainly. But I do feel I should contest your view that Rolfe's work 'is as far from modernism as it is possible to get'. Segalen4 (talk) 05:14, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for these interesting observations. I am afraid that I remain of the view that the studied archaism of Don Tarquino, for example, is "as far from modernism as it is possible to get". Certainly, a source is needed if a claim is made that it is some sort of precursor of modernism. Most serious English novelists of the mid and later 20th century would have read Rolfe but this does not mean that he influenced their work. To take a specific example, the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson certainly read Rolfe because she wrote an essay about him and based a novel of her own The Unspeakable Skipton on his character. There is no evidence that Rolfe influenced the style and attitude of her own writing, still less that he had any influence on the writing of her husband C P Snow. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:40, 22 August 2012 (UTC).

Frederick Rolfe
I'm not familiar with this person at all. Do you think Frederick Baron Corvo is the common name? Marcus  Qwertyus   00:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * If you read the article and the numerous biographies you will find that he was known both under his true name Frederick Rolfe and his assumed name (to which he claimed to have entitlement under Italian law, but which was not accepted by English law or even Italian law) Baron Corvo. Frederick Baron Corvo would not be correct as it mixes the two. I see that most of your prior edits have been on military matters and I commend you for extending your interests into this obscure area. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC).

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:33, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Frederick Rolfe → Baron Corvo – The names he lends himself, both Baron Corvo and Frederick Baron Corvo, seem to have more common usage than his birth name. Frederick Baron Corvo, Baron Corvo, Frederick Rolfe. I would take those numbers with a grain of salt since Google is about as accurate as a random number generator. Marcus  Qwertyus   02:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose this suggestion as a waste of time. Baron Corvo redirects here anyway. Baron Corvo gets 431,000 ghits, Frederick Rolfe gets 1,260,000 ghits. Xxanthippe (talk) 10:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC).
 * Oppose, as previous. Hohenloh + 11:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose -- the picture of his grave stone provides a clear answer. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Replies to Comments and Suggestions on Frederick Rolfe Entry
I have edited the Frederick Rolfe entry in several places over the past few years, and I am aware that there have been various comments and debates about my edits. I have not responded to the Wikipedians who have commented simply because my computer literacy is not fabulous and I have been bamboozled about how to do so. However, I think I might have worked it out now, and I'm willing to answer any questions. Of course I have interest in many other subjects, but have edited Rolfe's entry because I know quite a lot about him and he was the subject of my PhD. Apologies for my scrappy understanding of how the Talk pages work. ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Segalen4 (talk • contribs) 01:44, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Minor detail: you forgot to hold SHIFT while tapping those four ````. —Tamfang (talk) 02:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Tamfang. I hope I sign this one correctly. Segalen4 (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Frederick William Rolfe, known as "Baron Corvo", (1860 – 1913) English writer, artist and photographer.jpg