Abstract

Emma Stebbins’s untraced statue The Lotus-Eater (c.1857–60) purports to illustrate Alfred Tennyson’s poem of the same title, in turn derived from an episode in the Odyssey of Homer. This essay addresses the tension between Stebbins’s sculpture and Tennyson’s text. It brings to the discussion a body of antique visual and literary material to which Stebbins had access, images of and references to Antinous, the youthful and tragic lover of the Emperor Hadrian. Although the great flowering of Antinous scholarship and critique for queer men developed later in the nineteenth century, this study argues that the material was readily available for Stebbins, particularly through the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the objects in Rome, where she worked; later authors, such as John Addington Symonds, developed their commentary and fiction on Antinous from the same sources. The article brings together the thematic and visual resonances, references, and overlaps between the texts and images. It uses close attention to the formal qualities of the sculpture and the content of Tennyson’s poem to consider roads not taken, and how those options demonstrate the ambiguity in Stebbins’s finished sculpture: that is, its lack of clear moral or didactic content through its selection of the lotus-eater and Antinoan imagery, rather than a martial or moralizing figure from the poem. It demonstrates the complexity and subtlety of Stebbins’s selection of sources for her sculpture, and her rich, multivalent play between texts and images.

摘要

Emma Stebbins 的无踪雕像The Lotus-Eater（约1857-60 年）旨在说明 Alfred Tennyson 的同名诗，而这首诗又源自《奥德赛》中的一集荷马。这篇文章解决了斯特宾斯的雕塑和丁尼生的文字之间的紧张关系。它带来了斯特宾斯接触过的大量古代视觉和文学材料的讨论，这些材料是哈德良皇帝年轻而悲惨的情人安提诺斯的图像和参考资料。尽管 Antinous 学术研究和对酷儿男性的批评在 19 世纪后期发展起来，但这项研究认为，斯特宾斯很容易获得这些材料，特别是通过约翰·约阿希姆·温克尔曼 (Johann Joachim Winckelmann) 的著作和她在罗马工作的物品；后来的作者，如约翰·阿丁顿·西蒙兹，从相同的来源发展了他们对安提诺斯的评论和小说。这篇文章汇集了主题和视觉上的共鸣、参考以及文本和图像之间的重叠。它密切关注雕塑的形式品质和丁尼生诗歌的内容，以考虑未走的道路，以及这些选择如何证明斯特宾斯完成的雕塑中的模棱两可：也就是说，它通过选择吃莲花的人和安蒂诺斯人的意象，而不是诗歌中的军事或道德人物。它展示了斯特宾斯为她的雕塑选择来源的复杂性和微妙性，以及她在文本和图像之间丰富、多价的游戏。而不是诗中的好战或说教人物。它展示了斯特宾斯为她的雕塑选择来源的复杂性和微妙性，以及她在文本和图像之间丰富、多价的游戏。而不是诗中的好战或说教人物。它展示了斯特宾斯为她的雕塑选择来源的复杂性和微妙性，以及她在文本和图像之间丰富、多价的游戏。