...the edwardianjackal "most" list: "the seven most beautiful women in fiction"...

The "most 7" list looks at those definitive fictional beauties that gave impetus for many writers to commit pen to paper.  Listed with her name, is the author's description, as it serves the purpose best.
7. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen): although only described in this passage, it is a wonder how Austen's characters find life in each generation.  Elizabeth's beauty is such that it grew upon Darcy and that it was her, with all her flaws, the 'catch' of the family.

"[Darcy] had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware; -- to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable no where, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with."

6. Ligeia (Edgar Allen Poe): The classic gothic beauty may be found in these lines, as well as the desire I have for a beauteous woman who walks in shadow.

MirrorCradle on DeviantArt

"I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream — an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the heathen. “There is no exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, without some strangeness in the proportion.” Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity — although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed “exquisite,” and felt that there was much of “strangeness” pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of “the strange.” I examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead — it was faultless — how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty so divine! — the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, “hyacinthine!” I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose — and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection."

5. Rebecca de Winter (Daphne Du Maurier): Rebecca touched everything and everyone in a horror-show of love and desire.  Even after death, her spirit lived on.

"How could we be close when I knew you were always thinking of Rebecca? How could I even ask you to love me when I knew you loved Rebecca still?"
"What are you talking about? What do you mean?" "Whenever you touched me, I knew you were comparing me with Rebecca. Whenever you looked at me or spoke to me, walked with me in the garden, I knew you were thinking, 'This I did with Rebecca. And this and this.' It's true, isn't it?"
"You thought I loved Rebecca? You thought that? I hated her! Oh, I was carried away by her - enchanted by her, as everyone was. And when I was married, I was told that I was the luckiest man in the world. She was so lovely - so accomplished - so amusing. 'She's got the three things that really matter in a wife,' everyone said: 'breeding, brains, and beauty.' And I believed them - completely. But I never had a moment's happiness with her. She was incapable of love, or tenderness, or decency."
"You didn't love her? You didn't love her?"


4. Object of Sonnet 18 (Shakespeare): nothing to add to these words, as the Bard found what young men feel in fancy.

-rainman on DeviantArt

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

3. Roxane (Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand): one of my favorite plays, if anything, for the sumptuous delight that Cyrano is allowed throughout.  Frustrating as well that it is only at the very end do all things come together - but his love for Roxane is exposed.

CYRANO:
All, all, all, whatever
That came to me, e'en as they came, I'd fling them
In a wild cluster, not a careful bouquet.
I love thee! I am mad! I love, I stifle!
Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep-bell,
And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee,
Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth!
All things of thine I mind, for I love all things;
I know that last year on the twelfth of May-month,
To walk abroad, one day you changed your hair-plaits!
I am so used to take your hair for daylight
That,--like as when the eye stares on the sun's disk,
One sees long after a red blot on all things--
So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled vision
Sees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.
ROXANE (agitated): Why, this is love indeed!. . .
CYRANO:
Ay, true, the feeling
Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
Love,--which is ever sad amid its transports!
Love,--and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,
--E'en though you never were to know it,--never!
--If but at times I might--far off and lonely,--
Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,--
A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
To understand? So late, dost understand me?
Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
But to die now! Have words of mine the power
To make you tremble,--throned there in the branches?
Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
You tremble! For I feel,--an if you will it,
Or will it not,--your hand's beloved trembling
Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
(He kisses passionately one of the hanging tendrils.)
ROXANE: Ay! I am trembling, weeping!--I am thine!
Thou hast conquered all of me!

MoraruPatricia on DeviantArt

2. Object of She Walks in Beauty (Lord Byron): my favored poem of all.  Byron captures, in both word and meter, the tempered wonder of finding beauty in a woman.  How passionate and quiet it is at the same time.

aufzehengehen on DeviantArt

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

1. Helen (Sappho): "The face that launched a thousand ships."  Helen of Troy is the definitive beauty of which wars began, cities burned, thousands of statues, and thousands of poems dedicated to her honor.  She was the woman, for her time, that gods and men could allude to for all their desires.

A troop of horse, the serried ranks of marchers,A noble fleet, some think these of all on earthMost beautiful. For me naught else regarding Is my beloved.
To understand this is for all most simple,For thus gazing much on mortal perfectinoAnd knowing already what life could give her, Him chose fair Helen,
Him the betrayer of Ilium's honour. The recked she not of adored child or parent,But yielded to love, and forced by her passion, Dared Fate in exile.
Thus quickly is bent the will of that womanTo whom things near and dear seem to be nothing.So mightest thou fail, My Anactoria, If she were with you.
She whose gentle footfall and radiant faceHold the power to charm more than a visionOf chariots and the mail-clad battalions Of Lydia's army.
So must we learn in world made as this oneMan can never attain his greatest desire,[But must pray for what good fortune Fate holdeth, Never unmindful.]

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