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Marvell's 'Interior Paramour': Clora meets the Cavaliers in 'The Gallery'
- Parergon
- Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Inc.)
- Volume 23, Number 2, 2006
- pp. 97-118
- 10.1353/pgn.2007.0019
- Article
- Additional Information
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Marvell's 'The Gallery' has been a comparatively neglected poem and has usually been read as a tribute to Clora within the framework of lyric based on Marino's 'La Galeria'. Using well-worn conceits and adopting the pose of an ultra fashionable art connoisseur, Marvell creates a gallery of mirrors that challenges Cavalier notions of compliment while criticizing the Stuart court's obsession with imagery and revealing the darker side of pastoral. Clora has many faces â not one â and the poem fails to reveal her immutable Platonic essence. Among Clora's innumerable portraits five are described: these have no relation to art works of the time but allow Marvell to explore the nature of poetic creativity in his typically oblique way.