Landscapes, Women, and Art in A. S. Byatt’s “Crocodile Tears” and “A Stone Woman”

ABSTRACT

This article examines the fascinating yet intricate relationships between women, art, and landscapes in A. S. Byatt’s two short stories, “Crocodile Tears” and “A Stone Woman”. By engaging in intertextual studies of two Renaissance texts and Byatt’s two short stories, this article aims to re-interpret the ambiguities at the core of these short stories and highlight authorial tones which are otherwise misread. In “Crocodile Tears”, Patricia reconsiders her relationship with her husband within the framework of Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra. Her failure to imitate Cleopatra signifies her moral ineptitude and emotional apathy. Ines in “A Stone Woman” becomes a cogent symbol of the Icelandic landscape, whose prototype is Spenser’s Dame Nature, personified nature, goddess of fertility, a monster, a beauty, and a union of opposites. Her precarious conditions at the end of this story suggest a recurrent motif that runs through Byatt’s entire oeuvre: Ars longa, vita brevis.

KEYWORDS:

• A. S. Byatt
• art
• “Crocodile Tears”
• “A Stone Woman”
• Antony and Cleopatra
• The Faerie Queene

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Byatt, “Crocodile Tears,” 35.

2 Ibid., 60.

3 Byatt, On Histories, 160.

4 Byatt, “The Djinn,” 113.

5 Byatt, The Virgin, 111.

6 Byatt and Ignês Sodré, 117.

7 Spenser, Book II, Canto VII, Stanzas 53–4.

8 Byatt, Possession, 511.

9 Byatt, On Histories, 120.

10 Byatt, Passions, xv.

11 Byatt, “Crocodile Tears,” 40.

12 Campbell, 194.

13 Boccardi, 112.

14 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 174.

15 Wallhead, 212.

16 Alfer and Edwards de Campos, 113.

17 Boccardi, 116.

18 Ibid., 114.

19 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 159.

20 Byatt, “Acknowledgements,” 278.

21 Byatt, “Crocodile Tears,” 20.

22 Ibid., 17.

23 Ibid., 22.

24 Ibid., 22–3.

25 Ibid., 22.

26 Ibid., 23.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., 24.

31 Ibid., 41–7.

32 Ibid., 49–50.

33 Ibid., 3.

34 Ibid., 9.

35 Ibid., 36–7.

36 Ibid., 52.

37 Ibid., 33–4.

38 Ibid., 46.

39 Shakespeare, Act I, Scene I, Lines 14–7, pp. 5–6.

40 Ibid., Act V, Scene II, Lines 312–4, p. 137.

41 Byatt, “Crocodile Tears,” 23.

42 Ibid., 46.

43 Ibid., 37.

44 Boccardi, 111.

45 Ibid., 112.

46 Byatt, “Crocodile Tears,” 37.

47 Ibid., 76.

48 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 134.

49 Ibid., 159.

50 Spenser, Two Cantos of Mvtabilitie, Canto VII, Stanza 6.

51 Byatt, Portraits, 4.

52 Byatt, The Virgin, 130.

53 Ibid., 12–3.

54 Byatt, On Histories, 121.

55 Byatt, “Morpho Eugenia,” 137–60.

56 Spenser, Two Cantos of Mvtabilitie, Canto VII, Stanza 5.

57 Ibid., Stanza 6.

58 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 148.

59 Ibid., 165.

60 Ibid., 168.

61 Ibid., 165.

62 Ibid., 160.

63 Spenser, Two Cantos of Mvtabilitie, Canto VII, Stanza 10.

64 “Sandro Botticelli.”

65 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 142.

66 Ibid., 181.

67 Ibid., 157.

68 Spenser, Two Cantos of Mvtabilitie, Canto VII, Stanza 13.

69 Ibid., Stanza 5.

70 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 166.

71 Ibid., 170.

72 Ibid., 138.

73 Ibid., 160.

74 Ibid., 166.

75 Ibid., 156.

76 Ibid., 138.

77 Ibid., 170.

78 Ibid., 140.

79 Oxford English Dictionary.

80 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 165.

81 Ibid., 174.

82 Ibid., 139.

83 Ibid., 160.

84 Spenser, Two Cantos of Mvtabilitie, Canto VII, Stanza 6.

85 Ibid., Stanza 5.

86 Ibid., Stanza 7.

87 Ibid., Stanza 8.

88 Ibid., Stanza 10.

89 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 174.

90 Ibid., 174–6.

91 Ibid., 176.

92 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 176–83.

93 Ibid., 183.

94 Ibid., 168.

95 Byatt, Possession, 249.

96 Byatt, “Crocodile Tears,” 76.

97 Ibid., 58.

98 Byatt, “A Stone Woman,” 183.

99 Riley, 270.