"Who would have heard of Héloïse, of Beatrice, of Leonora d’Este?" An interesting combination. I get the point about Dante making Beatrice famous, but Héloïse deserves credit for her own writings! And I hadn't heard of Leonora d'Este, or of Torquato Tasso, the poet who loved her, who seems to have lost popularity in the 20th century.
(And going back to the conversation between Nadine and Lady Brancepeth who started it: Cleopatra would have been known as the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty even without the asp or Antony!)
"She listened, much as she might have listened to the sonorous swell of the Marche au Supplice of Berlioz," -- an appropriate simile, since that movement of the Symphonie Fantastique was intended by the composer to be about the suffering of unrequited love.
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"Who would have heard of Héloïse, of Beatrice, of Leonora d’Este?" An interesting combination. I get the point about Dante making Beatrice famous, but Héloïse deserves credit for her own writings! And I hadn't heard of Leonora d'Este, or of Torquato Tasso, the poet who loved her, who seems to have lost popularity in the 20th century.
(And going back to the conversation between Nadine and Lady Brancepeth who started it: Cleopatra would have been known as the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty even without the asp or Antony!)
"She listened, much as she might have listened to the sonorous swell of the Marche au Supplice of Berlioz," -- an appropriate simile, since that movement of the Symphonie Fantastique was intended by the composer to be about the suffering of unrequited love.