Alice in Bed: Guests at a Mad Tea Party

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

The American poet Emily Dickinson spent most of her life in Amherst, Massachusets. Looking after her lawyer-father, regretting a mysterious love affair, living in seclusion, and flitting amongst her greenhouse flowers, Dickinson produced 1800 poems scribbled on the backs of envelopes and in her diaries. In her lifetime she had published only seven of her poems, all anonymously. It was not until five years after her death that her first book of poems was published. Despite her eccentric and isolated life, she remains one of the best known poets in America.

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

Born in Cambridgeport, Massachussetts, Margaret Fuller focused her thoughts upon Europe at an early age and went on to become a prominent intellectual in the literary world. During her travels throughout Europe, Fuller witnessed more than fifty revolutions in Austria, Prussia, and Italy. As a correspondent in for the New York Tribune, Fuller is most popularly known for her radicalism in her series of travel letters written between 1846 and 1850. After the fall of the Roman Republic in 1849, Fuller was to return to the United States, but drowned in the June 1850 shipwreck of the Elizabeth, together with her husband, the Marquis Giovanni Ossoli and their child, just a few miles offshore.

Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis

In the ballet Giselle, the Wilis are the spirits of virgins who died of heartbreak and now seek vengeance on any man who has betrayed them. Governed by Queen Myrtha, the Wilis live in a mysterious forest where they dance nightly until dawn. Giselle, who had been betrayed by Duke Albrecht, and died of the pain, is to be admitted to the Wili sorority by Myrtha. When they are interrupted in their dance by Hilarion, in love with Giselle, Myrtha charms him to dance into an icy pool of water. Albrecht, also searching for Giselle’s grave, is trapped by the Wilis, but saved by Giselle, who dances with him until dawn, and then returns to her grave.

Kundry

The antecendents of Kundry, the tortured soul of Wagner’s opera Parsifal, may be traced back, through Wagner’s original inspiration – the poem Parzival by the medieval poet Wolfram von Eschenbach – to Celtic legend. Kundry is the reincarnation of Herodias, who, because she had laughed at the Saviour’s suffering on the cross, was cursed to wander through the world until the return of Jesus Christ. She appears first in Montsalvat (the domain of the Grail) as a wild woman who is often found sleeping in the undergrowth, and reappears in the domain of the evil sorcerer Klingsor, where, under his orders and transformed into a beautiful tempress, she attempts to seduce Parsifal. The knight does not succumb, but by his faith destroys the evil kingdom, and upon his return to Montsalvat, he redeems Kundry, who dies, finally purified.