Venus and Christ in Chaucer's Complaint of Mars: The Fairfax 16 Frontispiece
- Author / Editor
- Brantley, Jessica.
Venus and Christ in Chaucer's Complaint of Mars: The Fairfax 16 Frontispiece
- Published
- SAC 30 (2008): 171-204.
- Physical Description
- 13 b&w illus.
- Description
- The artist of the Fairfax frontispiece manipulates similarities between traditional depictions of Venus "rising from the sea" (anadyomene) and Christ in baptism. The visual echoes express a form of "Christian skepticism" that parallels questions about free will and determinism evident in Chaucer's Mars. The illustration and the poem capitalize in similar ways on the rich ambivalences of mythographic traditions.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Complaint of Mars