How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
henceforth he would take a strictly scientific view of women, entertaining no expectations, but such as were justified beforehand. (2.15.25)
After Lydgate's experience with Laure, the beautiful French actress who murdered her husband because she was tired of him, he resolves that he'll approach women as objectively as he approaches everything else. He'll be truly scientific about it, and will act based on his observations as opposed to his expectations or desires. He, like Mr. Brooke, resolves to think of all women as scientific problems that need to be figured out.
Quote #5
"Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for being vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about representations of women. As if a woman were a mere coloured superficies! You must wait for movement and tone. There is a difference in their very breathing: they change from moment to moment." (2.19.23)
Will doesn't want his friend, Naumann, to attempt to paint Dorothea. Why? Because painting can't capture a woman's essence. There's something indefinable and ineffable about women that can't be caught in a flat, lifeless painting. Women are always changing! How can you catch that on a canvas? You only paint the surface, and so much of what makes women unique is what's going on below the surface. This, of course, begs the question of whether the same couldn't be true of men. Or is Will just as guilty of idealizing women as Naumann is, although his choice of medium ("language" as opposed to art) is different?
Quote #6
She was not a woman to be spoken of as other women are. (2.22.36)
Will isn't in love with Dorothea yet, but she's already become his ideal woman. She should be set above all other women. Even the words used to describe her should be different from the words used to describe others. Will understands Dorothea better than anyone does, but he still wants to think of her as some superhuman ideal instead of a living, breathing human.