January 12, 2002. Original presentation based on this information was presented with slides of all numbered figures in the “Sea Literature and Art” session of the 6th Maritime Heritage Conference at Wilmington, North Carolina on
Saturday, October 27, 2001. To contact the author, please write to colsen8798@aol.com.
By Carol A. Olsen.
All photos by the author.
“Ship Figureheads from Literature”
Gathered here are 19th c. ship figureheads taken directly from the pages of poems, prose, and plays. Since figureheads from literature do not seem to appear before the 19th c. (excepting Biblical and mythological subjects), reasons for the popularity of figureheads from literature in the 19th c. are suggested.
Literary examples presented here span 500 years, beginning with the
16th c. epic poem The Lusiads, which heralds in 10 cantos the heroics of Portuguese sailors, especially during Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India where he arrived in 1498. Enroute, da Gama and his sailors encounter the sunken-eyed, grotesque Cape of Storms personification called Adamastor, (fig 1) who threatens that if the Portuguese cross seas where no ship has sailed before:
“Year by year your fleets will meet
Shipwreck, with calamities so combined
That death alone will bring you peace of mind.”
Adamastor’s hellish-spirit spews from his own pathetic situation. As a Titan he unwisely tried to kiss the nymph Tethys, considered “loveliest of all the ocean.” She avenged his insolence by turning him into a clay-faced promontory to forever jut into the sea threatening sailors, and to heighten his anguish, she often stays within view in mock enticement. Overcoming the heart-stopping horror of Adamastor’s threats to them, the Portuguese sailors forbear and ultimately gain lasting national glory. The Adamastor figurehead, seen centuries later on the 1896 Portuguese cruiser ADAMASTOR, is in part an emblem of triumph over tremendous difficulty.
The 16th c. poet from whose imagination Adamastor springs is Luis Vaz de Camões (fig.2) who was himself the subject of a figurehead on the Lisbon-built 1883 Portuguese military brig CAMÕES. In 1559 after having been shipwrecked in the mouth of the Mekong River in Cambodia, Camões managed to swim to shore clutching the unfinished Lusiads manuscript and that 16th century poem is still among Portugal’s best-loved works.
Written 1599-1600, William Shakespeare’s comedy “As You Like It,” enjoyed great popularity in 19th c. England when British ships named HMS ORLANDO were a tribute to this play’s young hero. A warrior figurehead at Mystic Seaport, inscribed on his left side “HMS Orlando,” is believed to portray this lead figure (fig 3). At the play’s beginning, Orlando is despised by his older brother, Oliver, who privately curses: “I hope I shall see an End of him; for my Soul (yet I know not why) hates nothing more than he. Yet he’s gentle, never school’d, and yet learned, full of noble Devise, and all Sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the Heart of the World, and especially of my own People, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised…”
The loathed Orlando, in fact, loves Rosalind, who questions “Is his Head worth a Hat? Or his Chin worth a Beard?” In response Orlando festoons the forest with affectionate words for beautiful Rosalind, and eventually wins a better life and her hand. Orlando’s middle brother, Jacques, describes “All the World’s a Stage, And all the Men and Women merely Players; They have their Exits and their Entrances, And one Man in his Time plays many Parts…,” one of which is Warrior. It is in this guise that we see the figurehead marked “HMS Orlando.”
Told within a political framework is Edmund Spenser’s highly allegorical work Faerie Queene, which he began publishing in 1590. The main character often represents Queen Elizabeth, and nearly 3 centuries later, an 1860 ship named FAERIE QUEENE carried the elegantly detailed, crowned and royal female figurehead now on display at Museo Navale in La Spezia, Italy (fig.4).
Another key character in Faerie Queene is the warrior maiden Britomart, representing the virtue of Chastity. A female warrior figurehead said to be from the 1846 vessel BRITOMART is at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Chatham, England.
Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes penned Don Quixote in 1604 and its instant success continues as we still care for the knight-errant who courageously duels a windmill in his quest to honor Dulcinea. An 1868 Medford-built ship named DON QUIXOTE carried the plate-armored Don Quixote figurehead (fig.5) now housed at the Sjöfartmuseet in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In 1790, Robert Burns wrote the poem Tam o’Shanter at the request of antiquarian Captain Francis Grose whose interest was the Witches Meetings at Aloway Church. Burns imagines that after drinking into the night with friends, Tam o’Shanter begins his dark ride home alone, crooning as he goes. Seeing a short-skirted witch dancing in the churchyard, Tam yells something drunkenly appreciative, and although the witch angrily flies after him, she is only able to yank the tail off of his horse just before he gallops across a bridge. Tam is safe on the other side, knowing that witches cannot ever cross running water, such as that flowing beneath the bridge he’s just left behind. A copy of the white witch figurehead (fig. 6) is on the 1869 Dumbarton-built tea clipper CUTTY SARK in Greenwich, England, and the original is displayed inside the vessel.
The author Robert Burns himself, is the subject of a very nice little bust figurehead on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. While the attribute of a book, seen in his left hand, might be expected for Burns, in fact, many 19th c. figureheads hold books, which are perhaps as often poetry or popular novels as they are the more typical interpretation, the Bible.
Clearly figureheads from literature do not have to be from a story with a maritime theme, as evidenced by the exotically beautiful Lalla Rookh from an 1856 Liverpool-built tea clipper (fig. 7). The book titled Lalla Rookh was written in 1817 by Thomas Moore and reprinted throughout the 19th century. Lalla Rookh is a beautiful, intelligent, and pampered Indian princess traveling overland from her Delhi home to the “enchanting valley of Cashmere” where she will marry the prince of Bucharia. The journey of many days is made more pleasant by specially planted gardens and well-placed art works on view for her traveling party, and a poet named Feramorz has been provided to tell entertaining stories. She falls in love with Feramorz, and in the happy ending learns he is, after all, the very prince she is to marry. While the 1856 figurehead is preserved in the Cutty Sark collection, a later, equally elaborate Lalla Rookh figurehead is presumably lost. She was on the 1876 Liverpool-built iron barque LALLA ROOKH about which an article photo caption reads “recently sold to shipbreakers;” one source for this photo is The Mariners’ Museum Library in Newport News, Virginia.
Lorna Doone is the 1869 romance by British author Richard Doddridge Blackmore, as well as the name of an 1876 Dundee-built schooner. Photographed as later-named HARMONY and shown in Sea Breezes, Sept. 1925, No. 70, Vol. VII, p. 387, the vessel still carries a very stylish female figurehead which one may assume is original to LORNA DOONE rather than chosen by the later owners, the Moravian Church & Mission Agency which used the vessel to carry stores and missionaries between London and Labrador. Although called the “young queen of wealth and beauty” in this Victorian novel, Lorna has virtually no voice. More often she is spoken of by the action hero John Ridd as the ideal of “perfect loveliness.” She is the “purest …sweetest… virtuous maid “ who is also “kindly obedient” and comes to John Ridd “softly, as a woman [always should]…”. Yet women in general are described as “the mothers of all mischief,” with the difficulty that “downright honesty upon money matters is a thing not understood of women,” and we are told that “[a woman’s] nature is larger [than a man’s], but her mind [is] smaller.” This event-filled novel, in continuous print since 1869, may interest the 21st century reader for the written world the Victorian lady figurehead inhabits.
American author Henry W. Longfellow’s poem Song of Hiawatha tells of the prophet Hiawatha who is to bring peace to the warring Indian nations. The peace pipe is at the side of the Hiawatha figurehead in the Cutty Sark collection and, although that scroll-skirt style of figurehead doesn’t show feet, in the story Hiawatha is blessed with magic moccasins enabling him to stride a mile at a time, and by thought alone to direct and power a canoe (which facility a shipowner might especially appreciate). In Longfellow’s work, Hiawatha’s marriage to Minnehaha leads to a golden age of happiness and peace.
Minnehaha is herself the subject of a figurehead. Longfellow describes her as having feet as rapid as the river, and tresses flowing like water. Her name, in fact, means “laughing water” and she was on the bow of the 1856 Donald McKay-built vessel MINNEHAHA, the launch of which was attended by the poet Longfellow and actress Julia Bennett Barrow, who at the time was celebrated for her recitations of Longfellow’s work in Boston. In fact, Barrow’s onstage costume is that of an Indian maiden and the carving is now in the collection of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Museum in Virginia. Similarly a figurehead at the Peabody Museum in Salem, is said to portray the19th century actor François Joseph Talma in his stage-role as Roman emperor Nero. (fig. 8) The carving is from the 1827 Medford, Massachusetts built ship named TALMA.
But perhaps the motherlode of literary sources is from the ilk of Sir Walter Scott, whose writings include the novel Ivanhoe, the poem Lady of the Lake, and many more, the long list of which became 19th c. ship names. A few decades later, poet laureate Lord Alfred Tennyson presented Idylls of the King, and like Scott, Tennyson had drawn on Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th c. Le Morte D’Arthur. The well-received chivalric themes resulted in what were, for the times, blockbuster book sales and perhaps not coincidentally the heroes of those books became 19th c. figurehead subjects. A few include the carving said to be Sir Galahad (fig. 9) at the Seamen’s Church Institute in New York City, and a tentatively identified Sir Lancelot in the Cutty Sark collection(fig. 10). At the Museo Navale in La Spezia, there is Merlin the Magician (fig.11) from the 1846 ship CAMBRIA, and the Friar Tuck figurehead at Valhalla Maritime Museum survives the career-end of an 1857 Aberdeen-launched clipper.
While these examples clearly have literary connections, I suspect that others also exist which are less apparent. For example, a figurehead said to be Benjamin Disraeli survives in the Cutty Sark collection. While the date of the carving and its vessel are unknown, one might immediately expect that the figurehead is a nod to his role as British Prime Minister. However, two decades before Disraeli held that post, he had begun writing novels to express his political views. One from 1845 is Sybil or The 2 Nations which examines the enormous divide between England’s rich and poor. We might consider whether a vessel owner ever chose Disraeli as a figurehead in sympathy to his published views.
It might also be worthwhile to rethink figureheads that look
rock solid in their attribution.
For example, Mystic Seaport has a handsomely designed and powerfully
executed St. George figurehead (fig.12). While this may strictly
be the patron saint of England, perhaps the representation is meant to be
broader: in view of the fact that
there are clearly many figureheads from literature, might this represent the Red
Cross Knight in Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queene, who only later becomes
St. George? Early in the story,
The Red Cross Knight is characterized as a very flawed human being. Examples
are that he abandons the virtuous lady Una, whom he should protect, and instead
enjoys the companionship of seductive
Duessa who is later shown to be a scabby, filthy witch. Once reunited with modest Una, the Red
Cross Knight visits the house of Holiness and instructions from residents
Faith, Hope, Patience, Penance, Remorse, and Repentance underscore the moral
allegory of this Elizabethan poem.
From a mountain where he stands with Contemplation, the Red Cross Knight
sees himself, in a distant vision, as St. George the patron saint of England. At last, ready to show his strength
against a “Dragon horrible and stearne” as the Queen had earlier directed him
to do, he fights for 2-1/2 days until the dragon gushes black blood in death.
Una’s royal family is now free from the terror of the scaly-tailed,
fire-blowing beast, and although the Red Cross Knight loves Una whom he soon
weds, he quickly returns to the Queen for six more years of promised service:
“Vnto his Faerie Queene backe to return, The which he shortly did, and Vna left
to mourne…”. In Faerie
Queene the Red Cross Knight’s arduous path toward sainthood is splendidly
stocked with heroic challenges, which might make for a far more interesting
figurehead; perhaps a 19th c. shipowner thought so too.
Following are some of the reasons that books reach a wider audience in the 19th century and this, in part, may foster the use of figureheads from literature:
1) Books became cheaper with technological advances in printing including
the development of steam-driven printing machines;
2) Organization in the publishing business facilitates the distribution of books;
3) Literacy increases; and
4) Lending libraries put books into more hands, which in some cases enhances social position. For example, England’s 1842-established Mudie’s Select Library had a one-guinea annual subscription fee and H. Tucker in A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture describes that the presence of Mudie’s books in a home became an indication of genteel social standing.
There seem also to be practical elements in choosing figureheads from literature. For example, while a contemporary portrait figurehead of a lady in an 1876 dress may be elegant, it is also immediately out of date. On the other hand, there is a timeless quality to a literary figure such as King Arthur carrying his sword Excalibur (as I interpret an unlabelled figurehead at the Museu de Marinha in Lisbon to be).
Additionally, these popular literary figures seem to convey more than one message. When 19th c. readers see in literary heroes values of strength, honor, loyalty, and triumph in adversity, I suggest there is some assumption that figureheads of these heroes help to convey those qualities to their ships. More specifically, it seems to me that when a 19th century shipping enterprise chooses a figurehead from literature that is not only wildly popular in the 19th century, but perhaps HAS been enormously popular for 400 years, as in the case of Don Quixote, there IS some concept of buying into that popularity. Nineteenth- century shipowners were entrepreneurs who did virtually everything they could to enhance their business, from debating hull designs, calculating costs, figuring logistics, selecting capable captains, and making every other possible detailed decision about their business. I doubt this acumen always stopped just short of the figurehead.
Ultimately, however, choosing a figure from literature is a strong cultural statement; it’s a deliberate choice to honor the values the poem, play, or novel represents. The paths of enduring literary figures are never easy – that’s typically what makes their story great. Therefore, in any worldwide port, these carvings became the figurative language for what is funny and sad and most admired in the countries from which the ships came.
In summary, this article references several figureheads derived from 500 years of story-telling by authors from 7 western nations, and reasons are offered, such as improved literacy and more widely-circulated, lower-cost books that may have complemented this development in ship decoration. While, this article’s topic is 19th century carvings, I also offer two 20th c. favorites:
First, seafarer Joseph Conrad who authored the late 19th/early 20th century books Lord Jim, Typhoon, Nostromo, and many others, is the subject of the bronze figurehead (after the wooden original) on the iron ship JOSEPH CONRAD now at Mystic Seaport. Built in Denmark in 1882 as GEORG STAGE, in 1934 she was renamed JOSEPH CONRAD by the new owner, Alan Villiers, who is himself remembered as an author.
Also in the early 1980s I photographed Cyrano de Bergerac (Fig. 13) on a small yacht on the United States east coast. Cyrano is, of course, the witty cavalier who silently loves Roxane, yet gives the handsome Christian words to win her. But Cyrano is also the spirited fighter who shouts to a taunter:
“Always the answer – yes! Let me die so –
Under some rosy-golden sunset, saying
A good thing, for a good cause! By the sword,
The point of honor – by the hand of one
Worthy to be my foeman, let me fall –
Steel in my heart, and laughter on my lips!”
It seems in these little carvings that the desire to find heroes in literature and keep them with us in a seafaring context continues a little even now, to our credit
I would say.
-the end-
List of Figures (regret not shown here; please contact the author at colsen8798@aol.com, or the individual museums).
Selected Bibliography:
Aaron, D. (Ed.) , 1992, The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
London.
Andrews, J. (Ed.), 1991, As You Like It by William Shakespeare. London.
Ballou’s Pictorial Vol. X No. 20 (May 1856), Mrs. Barrow as Minehaha. Boston.
Coote, S., 1993, The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London.
Gies, F., 1984 The Knight in History. New York.
Gray, J. (Ed.), 1996, Idylls of the King by Lord Alfred Tennyson. London.
Hamilton, G., 1984, Silent Pilots. Mystic.
Hansen, H., 1979, Galionsfiguren. Munich.
Hooker, Brian (Trans.) 1981, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. Toronto.
Jarvis, C. (Trans.) and Riley, E. (Ed.), 1992, Don Quixote by Miguel de
Cervantes. Oxford.
Kinsly, J., (Ed.), 1969, Burns Poems and Songs. London.
Malory, T., 1999 edition of 15th c. Le Morte D’Arthur. New York.
Manning, Capt. T.D. and Walker, Commander C.F., 1959,
British Warship Names. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
McKay, R.,1995 version.Donald McKay and His Famous Sailing Ships.New York.
Moore, T., 1861. Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance. London.
Olsen, C., 1984.
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Figureheads from the
Mystic Seaport Museum Collection. Master’s Thesis, Texas A&M
University, College Station, Texas.
Roche Jr., T. (Ed.), 1978, The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. London.
Scott, Sir Walter, 1819, reprinted 1988. Ivanhoe. New York.
Sea Breezes, Harmony ex-Lorna Doone figurehead, Vol.VII, No. 70
(September 1925) p.387.
Shuttleworth, S. (Ed.), 1994, Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore. Oxford.
Smith, S. (Ed.), 1981, Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli. Oxford.
Sutherland, J., 1997, The Life of Walter Scott. Malden, Massachusetts.
Tucker, H., 1999, A Companion to Victorian Literature
& Culture.
Malden, Massachusetts.
Watts, C. (Ed.), 1993, A Preface to Conrad. Essex.
White, L. (Trans.), 1997, The Lusiads by Luis Vaz de Camões. New York.