English allusions in Kate Bush

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick
 Subject: English allusions in Kate Bush

     OK, so what _is_ the special British significance of purple flowers?
Also, IED meant to ask this of the Love-Hound who indicated he/she knew
of a special meaning to the "ravens" in _Lionheart_ a couple of years ago
in Love-Hounds. If someone can explain this reference, IED would appreciate
it. (He feels appropriately ignorant and foolish having to ask about these.)
     Incidentally, IED believes there is more than just a general passing
reference to Spring in the following lines from _Lionheart_: "Just give
me one kiss in apple blossom/Just give me one kiss and I'll be
wassailing/In the orchard, my English rose/Or with my shepherd, who'll
bring me home."
     Knowing that Kate is quite intimately acquainted with the early
Pre-Raphaelites' paintings, IED believes the above verses are certainly
a reference to one picture, possibly two. The certain (or nearly certain)
reference is to John Everett Millais's _Apple_Blossoms_, also known as
_Spring_ (1859). It depicts a group of young girls and ladies sitting
or standing in a rough semi-circle on a softly sunlit day, in a meadow
near an orchard of apple-trees in blossom. Some of the girls are
drinking some sort of drink or porridge. The painting is one of the
most famous and important of Millais's Pre-Raphaelite works. Knowing
that Kate's lyrics for _Lionheart_ were designed to be a kind of
panorama of distinctively, recognizably English images, it seems
extremely likely that the apple-blossom verse is meant to allude
to Millais's painting. (Kate has specifically singled out two of
Millais's other early, Pre-Raphaelite pictures in interviews:
his _Ophelia_ and his _A_Huguenot_, both from about 1852.)
     The other possible (but not certain) reference is to another
famous Pre-Raphaelite picture of English life, William Holman Hunt's
_The_Hireling_Shepherd_, which shows a ruddy-faced British shepherd
stretched out on a field, sweet-talking a young country maid (who
is feeding an apple to a little lamb), while behind them the shepherd's
flock of sheep, unattended, stray dangerously out of
their proper meadow. The shepherd has a small cask of beer round his
waist. Hence IED's suggestion that the verses above may also refer
to this picture.

-- Andrew Marvick