An Alternative Origin Story?: A Printerly View

By Jacqui Reid-Walsh and Colette Slagle

The last blog post ended with a question about the centrality of the mermaid in the making of the strip. In this post, we take a “printerly” view of the entire printed object in order to explore a possible alternative narrative where the mermaid is central.

As mentioned in the earlier blog, in the first panel there are four images produced by the two blocks (mermaid and Adam). From a reader-player’s view the sequence is Adam, Eve, the merman (when lifted against instructions) and the mermaid. Moving from the opposite direction, from the bottom up, we see that both Eve and the merman are formed by moving one flap each, and Adam is created by closing both flaps. Therefore, there are two prime positions: the top and the bottom both made by full blocks. Due to the ease of lifting the flaps to make these transformations, all from a mermaid first perspective, is there an alternate origin story being suggested?

(Jacqui’s woodblocks made from the Bodleian Library, Bodleian MS Wood E 25(10))

The official origin story is created by following the instructions. It places Adam as the major image and the mermaid as only an extension of Eve—the swirling tail suggests the serpent of the fall and the evil sexuality of Eve. Eve and the mermaid’s connection is reinforced by both figures having a flower in their left hand and a comb in their right.

(Photo courtesy of Penn State Libraries, Special Collections)*

If we start from the “printerly” view an opposing origin narrative is suggested. In a podcast for the University of Liverpool entitled, “Why do we love mermaids?”, English Professor Sarah Peverley discusses the function of merfolk as protective guardians in the ancient world. She notes that mermaids have long been present in our cultural mindset, although their form has changed over time. Even ancient Mesopotamia include frequent representations of merfolk. Peverley notes: “Largely it’s mermen to start with, although there are merwomen as well….They’re associated with creation itself. In these legends… the merfolk are there in the primordial oceans, the soup that creates all living things, and they act as protective guardians.” (https://www.online.liverpool.ac.uk/resource/why-do-we-love-mermaids)

(Photo courtesy of Penn State Libraries, Special Collections)*

Because this reading is physically submerged or hidden under the flaps, so not as easily accessible to a reader-viewer-player, Jacqui proposes this could be an alternate narrative to the official and more readily available story of Adam and Eve.

*These photos are of the undated Beginning, Progress, and End of Man owned by Penn State Libraries, which has no bibliographic information.  As such we do not know for certain how it relates to the 1688/9 edition held by the Bodleian Library.  We hypothesize that it may be a version based on this this edition due to the similar text and images.

Mermaid at the centre

By Jacqui Reid-Walsh and Colette Slagle

(image courtesy of the Bodleian’s Bibliographical Press, http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/theconveyor/2017/02/06/transformations-in-print/)

After spending some time with quasi diplomatic description and focusing on the fonts, styles and languages of the text of the metamorphic books, Colette and I have turned back to the four of five sets of woodcut images that populate all the books from the 17th century Beginning, Progress and End of Man though all the later versions of the Metamorphosis; or a transformation of pictures, whether printed or homemade. No matter the number of panels, the first set is always Adam, who turns into Eve, the intended transformation of Eve into a mermaid, and the (presumably) unintended one of Adam in into a merman. While there is text to support the first three figures, there is nothing to describe or comment on the merman.

Just as the anonymous verse is biblical or traditional, the sources of the woodcuts are unknown, although thought to be medieval. This turn to the visual also connects with a post sabbatical project of Jacqui’s that was based on “critical making” a facsimile of the first panel of the Bodleian library version dated 1688/9 version. This was undertaken using a period printing press and facsimiles of the woodcuts that were made for Jacqui by the library (please see the Bodleian Library blog entry in the Conveyer for Feb 6, 2017). Richard Lawrence did the actual printing, and The BlockShop in Liverpool  made the first set of blocks from the line drawings made from the Bodleian version (1788/89).

What was revolutionary for Jacqui when she saw the first panel being made was that there were actually only two blocks: Adam and the Mermaid. Since the paper is laid horizontally and the long edges turned down and up to make flaps, the mermaid is printed first so she is the prime image! When the two edges of paper are folded to meet in the middle, the Adam woodblock is placed over the break.

This ordering is the opposite of how we encounter the images textually by reading the words, following the instructions, and lifting the flaps up and down. Eve does not exist as a woodblock. She is formed only by the reader-viewer-player who follows the instructions to “turn Up the Leaf,” causes the image to transform into Eve. This sequence of images is perhaps an attempt to enact the biblical story of Eve coming from Adam’s rib.

To make matters more mysterious, there is a fourth figure that also emerges from the movement of the flaps, either by design or inadvertently. This is the merman—He is formed two ways. One is inadvertent. After lifting the top flap to create Eve a reader is instructed to “turn down the leaf” to see the mermaid at the end of sequence. But due to the design and weight the top flap tends to fall down to form a merman, who is not in the verse at all! Alternately, a disobedient reader-viewer-player may choose to turn down the lower flap first instead of lifting the top as instructed. The Adam transforms into the merman before he does into Eve. In all cases the effects and playability are only possible by the way the sheet is printed with the mermaid as the prime block on the underside of the unfolded paper strip.

This impels Jacqui to ask what is the importance of the primacy of the mermaid in the making of the strip? Is there any significance from the playful engagement of the flaps to create a merman? In order to think about this, what if we take a different approach to engaging with and interpreting the narrative? What would happen narrative if we examine it from a printerly view?

(Images courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Bodleian MS Wood E 25(10))