# Esau Penfold — Poetry character guide

> Esau Penfold in Poetry by Mina Loy.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Esau, Esau of Ridover Square

**First appearance:** 0076-enter-esau-penfold

## Snapshot

A five-year-old aesthete posed in Tyrian toga holding an orb, Esau Penfold is his mother's published exhibit, smiling suavely among Tibetan treasures and Ming while Kilburn's children are told to hush.

## Who they are

Esau Penfold is the boy for whom Patricia Penfold wrote The Infant Aesthete, displayed at Lady Bliss's costume ball where matrons put themselves on the order list and professors discourse on calculus over his head. In the Penfold residence on Ridover Square he moves among fifteenth-century andirons, Buddha's ruby eyes, and Florentine angels, a living advertisement for British culture's competitive cultivation of childhood. Set against Exodus's child propped on a cretonne chair under an oleograph, Esau embodies the gilded, curated infancy that Ova's world denies her.

## Relationships

### [Lady Bliss](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/characters/lady_bliss)

_romantic_

Esau Penfold and Lady Bliss share a romantic or flirtatious relationship, marked by mutual attraction.

### [Benger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/characters/benger)

_professional_

Benger and Esau Penfold have a professional relationship, possibly as employer and employee or colleagues.

### [Exodus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/characters/exodus)

_rivalry_

Esau Penfold and Exodus are rivals, competing for status or the affection of others.

## In the story

### [Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/anglo-mongrels-and-the-rose)

Esau Penfold is a child prodigy and the subject of his mother Patricia's book 'Infant Aesthete.' He is displayed at a literary salon, representing the artificial cultivation of childhood in upper-class English society.

### [Mongrel Rose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/mongrel-rose)

The infant aesthete, celebrated at a literary reception for his mother's book 'Infant Aesthete,' dressed in a toga and holding an orb.

### [Enter Esau Penfold](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/enter-esau-penfold)

The five-year-old aesthete, dressed in a Tyrian rose toga and holding an orb, is the center of attention at Lady Bliss's costume ball, charming guests with his precocious remarks.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/i)

The five-year-old boy at the center of the reception, dressed in a Tyrian rose toga and holding an orb, suavely smiles at a professor of anthropology.

### [Opposed Aesthetics](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/opposed-aesthetics)

Esau of Ridover Square absorbs the erudite idea that Beauty is nowhere except posthumously to itself in the antique, training creation to flatten into one vast monopattern.

### [Marriage Boxes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/chapters/marriage-boxes)

Mentioned alongside the Penfolds as a couple whose battles are intellectual, chewing on culture's bone of contention.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/characters/esau_penfold
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_17_se/characters