BTW, Ann, I blame the viewing of filmaticized versions of much classical Victorian British litterature, which the Norwegian State Broadcaster showed instead of "violent and degenerate American filth" in my formative years for many of my erotic kinks. The pond discussion in another thread made me think of:
Yes. In England ponds tend to be isolated and often stagnant or nearly so. The word 'pond' is used of small bodies of fresh water.
But some small ponds, like the one in E. M. Foster's "A room with a view" are just "distinctly successful" and "no apologies necessary for the pond", according to the Reverend Beebe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVh3uPrubyo#t=53m13s. I watched that as a 10-12 year old and yeah, it was part of the building of the framework that led to an interest in the Honeychurches' and Beebes' contemporaries, the Romanovs, and a few other things..... :-)
Reviewing it, I now notice that the Reverend Beebe picks up and briefly mentions Housman's "A Shropshire Lad" before that splendid bathing scene, which can be viewed both homoerotically (yours truly certainly did!) or just generally anti-Victorian, anti-prudish and as an anti-modern protest.
That pond scene can certainly point to a fascination with Italian joie de vivre (as it does in the novel), but also to the curious contradiction which the Romanovs represent: People who outwardly were Victorians ruling over Slavs who (they bemoaned) had not yet reached modernity with all its artificiality and restraint. The Slavs are of course a race not sprung mythically from the sea and mountains (like the Nordic, Celtic and Mediterranean), but from the swamps, ponds, lakes and rivers of the plains and forests.
