Sylph

Origin

The iconographic origin is the four-element-spirit canon — Water (Undine), Air (Sylph), Earth (Gnomus), Fire (Salamander) — of the Latin treatise A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders of Paracelsus posthumously published in Basel, Switzerland in 1566. Paracelsus, born in Switzerland, wrote it in the 1530s in Salzburg and Innsbruck, and coined Sylphus as a compound of the Greek silphe (silphe, 'butterfly') and the Latin sylvestris ('of the forest') — the air-element spirit. Le Comte de Gabalis (first published in 1671) of the French writer Montfaucon de Villars (1635-1673) of 1690 — adapting the four-element-spirit theory into 17th-century French salon literature — is the decisive event of 17th-18th-century European salon-literary popularisation of the Sylph, and the decisive literary canon is the satirical poem The Rape of the Lock of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) published in London on 4 May 1712 — satirising the actual event in which the British Catholic nobleman Lord Petre (Robert Petre, 7th Baron Petre) cut the lock of Arabella Fermor without consent in 1711 — the decisive English-literary canon in which female souls become sylphs after death and protect virgins.

Features

• Free-spirited, translucent humanoid
• Dragonfly- or butterfly-like wings
• Moves with the wind
• Lover of music and poetry
• Virgin souls become sylphs after death (Pope canon)
• Weakness to strong wind and heavy substances

Stories

The 1566 Paracelsus four-element-spirit canon is the decisive origin, and Le Comte de Gabalis of Montfaucon de Villars of 1690 established the 17th-century French salon-literary Sylph canon. The decisive literary canon is the satirical poem The Rape of the Lock (first edition 2 cantos, 1714 expanded 5 cantos) of Alexander Pope (1688-1744) published in London on 4 May 1712, and the decisive ballet canon is the ballet La Sylphide premiered at the Salle Le Peletier opera house in Paris on 12 March 1832 (composed by Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer, 1785-1852, choreographed by Filippo Taglioni, 1777-1871, starring Marie Taglioni, 1804-1884) — as the first pointe-shoe performance in ballet history — establishing the decisive 19th-century Romantic ballet canon. The Danish version premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on 28 July 1836, choreographed by August Bournonville (1805-1879) and composed by Herman Severin Lovenskiold — preserved to 2024 — is the decisive Danish ballet canon. The Sylph of the 1977 D&D Monster Manual by Gary Gygax (1938-2008) of TSR in the USA and the summoned beast Sylph of Final Fantasy III of Square (Japan, 18 December 1987) are modern global canons.

Weakness

The Sylph's weaknesses are: (1) being swept by strong wind — vulnerable to uncontrollable storms; (2) heavy substances — weak against lead and iron due to its light air essence in the 1566 Paracelsus canon; (3) binding to human love — in Pope's 1712 and the 1832 ballet canons, loving a human costs free essence; (4) the canonical finale of the 1832 ballet La Sylphide — a Sylphide who fell in love with the Scottish youth James is caught by the magical scarf of the witch Madge, her wings fall off, and she dies — the decisive 19th-century Romantic tragic canon; (5) Paracelsian four-element binding — environmentally bound to its air element; (6) the weight of strong earth — weak four-element opposition; (7) the essence of fickleness — cannot stay in one place; (8) revelation of secrets — in Montfaucon de Villars's 1690 canon, if a promise with a Sylph is revealed, the Sylph disappears. The decisive finale is the 1832 ballet La Sylphide in which James wraps the witch's magical scarf around the Sylphide, the Sylphide's wings fall off, and her sister Sylphides lift her body into the sky — the decisive 19th-century Romantic ballet tragic canon.

Cultural Significance

The Sylph is the canonical iconographic figure of the Western air-spirit canon traversing Paracelsus's four-element-spirit theory of 1566, Montfaucon de Villars's Le Comte de Gabalis of 1690, Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock of 1712, Jean-Madeleine Schneitzhoeffer's ballet La Sylphide of 1832, the Danish version by Bournonville of 1836, the 1977 D&D Monster Manual, and Square's Final Fantasy III of 1987. The satirical poem The Rape of the Lock (first edition 2 cantos 794 lines, 1714 expanded 5 cantos) of Alexander Pope published in London on 4 May 1712 — satirising the actual 1711 event in which Lord Petre cut the lock of Arabella Fermor — became the decisive canon of 18th-century English literature, and the guardian sylph Ariel of the protagonist Belinda appears in the poem. The ballet La Sylphide premiered at the Salle Le Peletier opera house in Paris on 12 March 1832 — the first pointe-shoe performance in ballet history — became the decisive canon of 19th-century Romantic ballet, and Marie Taglioni (born 23 April 1804 in Stockholm, Sweden, died 22 April 1884 in Marseille, France) became the decisive first ballerina to take the stage in pointe shoes and the decisive canon of 19th-century ballet. The Danish version La Sylphide premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on 28 July 1836, choreographed by Bournonville and composed by Lovenskiold — preserved to 2024 — is the decisive Danish ballet canon.

In Popular Culture

Paracelsus, A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders (1566) — decisive four-element-spirit canonMontfaucon de Villars, Le Comte de Gabalis (1690) — French salon-literary Sylph canonAlexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712) — decisive English-literary canonBallet La Sylphide, Paris (1832) — decisive 19th-century Romantic ballet canonBournonville, La Sylphide, Copenhagen (1836) — decisive Danish ballet canonDoyle, The Coming of the Fairies (1922) — British fantasy canonGygax, D&D Monster Manual, Sylph (1977) — decisive fantasy RPG canonSquare, Final Fantasy III, Sylph (1987) — decisive video-game canon