Here the complete series of posts: Cannon in the Canon
Obviously, the main component of an iron foundry is the furnace. Not just any furnace; at the time they were using blast furnaces with giant bellows which blew air into the furnace. Here is a photo of the types of bellows that were used around that time:
And here is a video of a half-scale working model of such a furnace.
So we should expect lots of metaphorical references to these furnaces from Shakespeare's earliest works onward, demonstrating a personal knowledge of these fiery, smokey monstrosities. Idea being, we write what we know. Neville knew about furnaces so it would be natural for him to write about them.
Venus and Adonis, the earliest Shakespeare-attributed work, published in 1593, offers a metaphor of a fiery furnace, with the air being drawn in and blown out:
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
The second earliest work, Rape of Lucrece describes the smoke that rises from a furnace:
'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous Day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
One of the earliest plays, King Henry VI, Part III, 2.1, has a particularly interesting passage, Richard III explains that he cannot speak to unload his burden because the breath would kindle the furnace of his heart. Note the reference to "coal" here is "charcoal"; coal-fired furnaces came later. This reference to the heart as a furnace mirrors Sidney's Astrophel and Stella "Through that darke Furnace of my heart opprest":
I cannot weep; for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:
Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burthen;
For selfsame wind that I should speak withal
Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,
And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.
Later, around 1599, As You Like It, 2.7, suggests that a furnace "sighs", perhaps a reference to the sound of the air coming into and out of the bellows:
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Most of these metaphors incorporate the "blast" aspect of the furnace. That's indicative of a familiarity with how furnaces in the 1590s functioned. A further research project would be to compare how often other poets and playwrights in the period used furnaces in metaphors. There are also some biblical references from translations of the Bible available to Shakespeare, so that would be an interesting study as well.
In my earlier post on cannons I discussed the potential authorship of The Troublesome Reign of King John. That play does, in fact, include a furnace reference:
To tumble on and cool this inward heat
That rageth as the furnace sevenfold hot
To burn the holy three in Babylon.
Power after power forsake their proper power
Not the most evocative metaphor, but in-line with what one would expect from an early Neville/Shakespeare play.
Here the complete series of posts: Cannon in the Canon
