(HOST) As warmer weather returns, commentator and Vermont Humanities Council executive director Peter Gilbert is reminded of an item often found at yard sales – one that takes him from his grandparents’ kitchen to ancient China and Victorian England – and one that holds some timeless lessons.
(GILBERT) When I was little, the two strongest associations with visits to my grandparents’ house in southern Vermont were, first, the smells – especially the closet where they kept old toys – and, second, their blue Willow-ware dishes. To me they were the embodiment of age – both old people and bygone days.
You’ve probably seen Willow-ware countless times – white and cobalt blue dishes depicting a scene that includes several Chinese houses, a Chinese boat and bridge with three figures running across it, fruit trees, and, of course, a willow tree. It supposedly portrays a Chinese legend; in truth, the story’s an English invention. It’s a familiar kind of tale: a girl falls in love with a poor servant, but her wealthy and powerful father wants to marry her off to a rich old nobleman. The lovers elope; they are chased by the angry father. The old nobleman follows with his henchmen, the boy is slain, and the girl, in despair, sets fire to their house and perishes in the flames. But the pitying gods turn the lovers into immortal doves, to dwell in beauty and constancy. You can see the birds on the plates flying above their former earthly dwellings.
I didn’t know it as a child, of course, but Willow-ware is the most common plate design in English history; it was especially popular during the Victorian era. The pattern originated in 1780 at a porcelain factory in Shropshire; soon countless manufacturers were making it. It was so well-known that it appeared in lots of Victorian plays and novels. Indeed, it’s central to the theme of a masterful 1879 novel entitled The Egoist, by George Meredith. Although the plot doesn’t follow the Chinese legend verbatim, the novel depicts the difficulties of being a woman in English society, where too often fathers and suitors looked on a bride as a commodity – as in the Chinese story.
The Egoist (or "Egg-oist," as the English would say) is the story of the self-absorbed and controlling Sir Willoughby Patterne (get it – Sir "Willow-bee Pattern"!) His attempts to marry several different women, including the heroine, meet with no success. At one point, the independent-minded heroine is described as "a dainty rogue in porcelain." When the Egoist asks why she’s "a rogue," he’s told enigmatically, "Porcelain explains it" – an allusion to the strong-willed girl in the Willow-ware legend. The allusion is lost on Sir Willoughby Patterne, but not on careful readers!
After the novel was published, a friend of George Meredith’s came to him terribly upset: he thought that Meredith had modeled the character Willoughby Patterne after him. "This is too bad of you," he cried. "Willoughby is me!"
"No, my dear fellow," said the author; "He is all of us."
And so Meredith, with his ingenious analogy between the Willow-ware legend depicting traditional Chinese culture and his social satire of Victorian society, successfully interpreted a foreign-sounding tale and a popular plate pattern in a way that makes both resonate – even today – with men and women alike.