terribility

One of the first reviews of The Brides' Tragedy, by the dramatist and critic George Darley in the London Magazine, praised Beddoes to the skies for his 'undepraved ear, and his native energy of mind', and for possessing 'tragic powers of the very highest order', but then brought him down to earth with a criticism as shrewd as it was prescient: The energy, passion, terribility, and sublime eloquence of the stage, he appears perfectly competent to: his faculties in the artful development of story, the contrastment and individualizationof characters, the composition of effective dialogue, the management of incidents, scenes, and situations, &c.

The sphinx is a classically beautiful but malevolent young male, the only indication that this is not simply a man being the powerful claw attached to the base of the bust which functions, as an iconographical attribute and reveals its mythical status, inspired by the atrocities of World War I, the God of war is similar to The sphinx, in that it consists of a male head topped by a skull, the only difference being that in the latter, the figure's all too human expression of despair is powerfully reminiscent of Michelangelo's terribility, and testifies that this is a symbolic embodiment of a terrible moment in the history of humankind.