DOCSLIB.ORG

Close Encounters: Anna Seward, 1742–1809, a Woman in Provincial Cultural Life

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Close Encounters: Anna Seward, 1742–1809, a Woman in Provincial Cultural Life CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository CLOSE ENCOUNTERS: ANNA SEWARD, 1742–1809, A WOMAN IN PROVINCIAL CULTURAL LIFE by MARION ROBERTS A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTER OF LETTERS School of Humanities College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham December 2010 ABSTRACT Anna Seward (1747–1809) is best known today as a poet, but one whose reputation did not survive her death. Most studies of Seward since the nineteenth century have been critical or dismissive, but in recent years her published work has attracted more attention. Academics, particularly feminist scholars, have focused on her environmental observations, and the ways in which her writings draw attention to the gendered nature of eighteenth-century society. This study adopts a different approach by exploring Anna Seward’s private and public life within the provincial culture in which she emerged and remained until her death. Seward’s identity was shaped by her early life in the Derbyshire Peak District and the cathedral city of Lichfield. Her relationships with male mentors and friends of both sexes provided learning experiences and opportunities to develop her literary skills and personal confidence. Her wealthy clergyman father educated her at home and developed her literary interests. She was also heavily influenced by Dr Erasmus Darwin who encouraged her literary abilities and developed her confidence. Influenced by other provincial literary figures, such as Thomas Whalley, William Hayley, Robert Southey, Helen Maria Williams, Hannah More and the Ladies of Llangollen, she embarked on a publishing career, became a commentator on public affairs and acted as a critic. Her extensive letters bear witness to a wide range of interests and a large network of correspondents. Unlike other cultural figures, Seward did not move to London to participate in the competitive life of the capital. She disliked large towns and did not become part of the Bluestocking circle of metropolitan intellectuals; instead, people came to her or solicited her opinions from a distance. Seward was self- willed, independent and prepared to criticise the famous, such as Samuel Johnson and 2 Darwin, her former mentor. Her life in Lichfield, moreover, secured the disapproval of the local ecclesiastical establishment, because of her close public relationship with a married man, John Saville. Towards the end of her life she worked to secure her reputation as a poet and commentator, through the agency of Walter Scott, but after her death, his savage editing of her letters and works did much to destroy her reputation. Though Seward was a literary figure orbiting within an environment which excluded London, her life was important. It revealed how middle-class women could develop a national cultural reputation outside of the capital and provided a commentary on the vigorous nature of provincial life in the English Midlands. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincere and heartfelt thanks go first to my supervisors, Sebastian Mitchell and Malcolm Dick for their support, guidance and encouragement throughout this study, then to the staff of various establishments and organisations: Pat Bamford, Librarian, Lichfield Cathedral Library; Mithra Tonking, Diocesan Records, Lichfield; Martin Sanders and Joanne Peck, Lichfield Record Office; Joanne Wilson, curator, Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, Alison Wallis, curator, Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield; Sally Baggott, Curator, the Birmingham Assay Office; staff at Derbyshire Record Office and the William Salt Library, Stafford; Elizabeth Eger, The British Library, London and staff at their Reproduction Services, Wetherby, Yorkshire; Iain Gordon Brown, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Lona Jones, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; staff at the Information Services Department, University of Birmingham; Sian Roberts and Alison Smith, Birmingham Archives and Heritage, Birmingham Central Library; Patsy Folan and Jane Love, Wythall Library, Worcestershire Libraries Service; John Clifford, Curator, Eyam Museum, Derbyshire; Anne Newport, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Peter Meadows, Keeper of Ely Diocesan Records, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge; staff at the County Records Office, Cambridge; Lucy Peltz, National Portrait Gallery, London and Dr. Desmond King-Hele, historian and Erasmus Darwin biographer. In the United States of America, I wish to thank Bruce Kirby, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington; Becca Findlay Lloyd, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Leslie 4 Morris, Curator of Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Josephine Dobkin, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Janie Cohen, Director, The Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, Vermont and staff at the National Library of Congress, Washington, all of whom have been most courteous and helpful throughout. My greatest debt, though, is to my family – my late husband, Sydney Roberts and sons, Andrew and Eric, who have supported me, in so many ways, in my quest for the Swan of Lichfield. 5 CONTENTS Pages Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 4 Abbreviations 7 Anna Seward (1742–1809): Chronology 8 Introduction 13 1. Eighteenth-Century Lichfield and Provincial Society 43 2. Anna Seward: Early Life and Education, 1742–1756 57 3. Independence and Defiance: The Seward and Saville Relationship, 1754–1809 76 4. Dependence and Independence: Anna Seward and Erasmus Darwin, 1756–1802 92 5. Discovering Anna Seward: Batheaston and Beyond, 1780–1795 108 6. Decline and Death, 1796–1809 131 7. Conclusion 150 Appendix 1: Correspondence between Anna Seward and Erasmus Darwin, September 1780: the ‘Cat’ Letters and Poems 157 Appendix II: Anna Seward: Last Will and Testament 170 Bibliography 175 6 ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations appear in the thesis: AS Anna Seward CUL Cambridge University Library DRO Derbyshire Record Office FM Fleming Museum, Vermont HU Harvard University LoC Library of Congress, Washington LCL Lichfield Cathedral Library LRO Lichfield Record Office MM Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NA National Archives, Kew NPG National Portrait Gallery, London PRC Prerogative Court of Canterbury SJBM Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, Lichfield UBL University of Birmingham Library UCL University College Library, London WSL William Salt Library, Stafford YL Yale University 7 ANNA SEWARD (1742–1809): CHRONOLGY 1742: Born St. Laurence’s Rectory, Eyam, Derbyshire, 12 December (Father: Reverend Thomas Seward. Mother: Elizabeth Hunter. Married: Newton- In-the-Thistle, Warwickshire, 1740). 1744: Sarah Seward born 17 March (Five other children born to the Sewards, between 1747–1753 of which three died early in life and two were stillborn). 1749: Reverend Thomas Seward appointed Residentiary Canon, Lichfield Cathedral. Family move to 15 Saddler (Market) Street, Lichfield. 1754: Seward family move into the Bishop’s Palace. 1755: John Saville, Vicar Choral, commences harpsichord lessons with Anna Seward. 1756: Dr. Erasmus Darwin comes to set up practice in Lichfield. Honora Sneyd comes to live with the Sewards. Darwin praises Anna’s poetry. Parents forbid her to write. 1757: Darwin marries Anna Seward’s friend, Mary Howard. 1759: Anna Seward writes poem, Portrait of Miss Levett 1761: Samuel Johnson visits his mother and Lucy Porter. Anna Seward begins to write verse epistle, Louisa 1762: Portrait painted by Tilly Kettle. Meets Captain Hugh Temple (October). Begins the ‘juvenile’ letters. Reads Rousseau’s Julie (May). 1763: Sarah is engaged to Johnson’s stepson, Joseph Porter (June). Lucy Porter inherits fortune from her brother, Capt. Jervis Porter of £10,000. Builds Redcourt in Lichfield. 1764: Saville is mentioned for the first time in the ‘juvenile’ letters. April: Joseph Porter arrives from Italy. June: Sarah becomes ill with ‘putrid fever’, 2 June and dies 9 June from possibly Miliary Tuberculosis. July: Seward and her father go to Eyam. She starts a relationship with Major Wright of Eyam Hall. Aug: Returns to Lichfield. Major Wright visits. He proposes marriage but is dismissed by Canon Seward. Sept: Seward goes to London. Meets Captain Temple again. Becomes engaged. After her return, her father breaks the engagement. She is wooed and then jilted by Cornet Vyse. Seward writes and publishes, The Visions, an Elegy. 8 1765: Seward writes and publishes, Elegy, Addressed to Cornet Vyse. 1766: Richard Lovell Edgeworth visits Lichfield. Lucy Porter lives at Redcourt. 1767: Samuel Johnson’s mother is very ill. Lucy Porter asks him to visit but he fails to do so. Lucy Porter informs him of his mother’s death on the 23 January. Johnson does not attend her funeral. August: Seward is away from home for three months. 1768: Capt. Temple renews his courtship. Seward writes that she is not interested. She fractures her right knee-cap in a fall down steps. Darwin treats her. 1769: Seward meets John André in Buxton. He travels back to Lichfield, meets Honora Sneyd. André conducts a ‘triangular’ romance with Honora Sneyd through letters addressed to Anna Seward. André proposes marriage to Honora. 1770: Edgeworth, Day and his two orphan girls come to live at Stowe House. André dismissed by Mr. Sneyd. Mary Darwin dies. Seward and Saville painted by John Smart. Seward begins her cycle of Sonnets. 1771: Edgeworth in love with Honora Sneyd. Day proposes marriage
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Samuel Johnson*S Views on Women: from His Works
    SAMUEL JOHNSON*S VIEWS ON WOMEN: FROM HIS WORKS by IRIS STACEY B.A., University of British .Columbia. 1946 A Thesis submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard The University of British Columbia September, 1963 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that per• mission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly ' purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives,. It is understood that copying, or publi• cation of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia, Vancouver 8, Canada. Date JjiMZ^kA- ^,/»^' ABSTRACT An examination of Samuel Johnson*s essays and his tragedy, Irene, and his Oriental tale, Rasselas, reveals that his concept of womanhood and his views on the education of woman and her role in society amount to a thorough-going criticism of the established views of eighteenth-century society. His views are in advance of those of his age. Johnson viewed the question of woman with that same practical good sense which he had brought to bear on literary criticism. It was important he said "to distinguish nature from custom: or that which is established because it was right, from that which is right only because it is established." Johnson thought that, so far as women were concerned, custom had dictated views and attitudes which reason denied.
    [Show full text]
  • The JESSOP Consultancy Sheffield + Lichfield + Oxford
    The JESSOP Consultancy Sheffield + Lichfield + Oxford Document no.: Ref: TJC2020.160 HERITAGE STATEMENT December 2020 NEWFOUNDLAND NURSERY, Sir William Hill Road, Eyam, Derbyshire INTRODUCTION SCOPE DESIGNATIONS This document presents a heritage statement for the The building is not statutorily designated. buildings at the former Newfoundland Nursery, Sir There are a number of designated heritage assets William Hill Road, Grindleford, Derbyshire (Figure 1), between 500m and 1km of the site (Figure 1), National Grid Reference: SK 23215 78266. including Grindleford Conservation Area to the The assessment has been informed through a site south-east; a series of Scheduled cairns and stone visit, review of data from the Derbyshire Historic circles on Eyam Moor to the north-west, and a Environment Record and consultation of sources of collection of Grade II Listed Buildings at Cherry information listed in the bibliography. It has been Cottage to the north. undertaken in accordance with guidance published by The site lies within the Peak District National Park. Historic England, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and Peak District National Park Authority as set out in the Supporting Material section. The JESSOP Consultancy The JESSOP Consultancy The JESSOP Consultancy Cedar House Unit 18B, Cobbett Road The Old Tannery 38 Trap Lane Zone 1 Business Park Hensington Road Sheffield Burntwood Woodstock South Yorkshire Staffordshire Oxfordshire S11 7RD WS7 3GL OX20 1JL Tel: 0114 287 0323 Tel: 01543 479 226 Tel: 01865 364 543 NEWFOUNDLAND NURSERY, Eyam, Derbyshire Heritage Statement - Report Ref: TJC2019.158 Figure 1: Site location plan showing heritage designations The JESSOP Consultancy 2 Sheffield + Lichfield + Oxford NEWFOUNDLAND NURSERY, Eyam, Derbyshire Heritage Statement - Report Ref: TJC2019.158 SITE SUMMARY ARRANGEMENT The topography of the site falls steadily towards the east, with the buildings situated at around c.300m The site comprises a small group of buildings above Ordnance datum.
    [Show full text]
  • Lichfield Visitor Guide
    In this guide Top visitor attractions 1 Top visitor attractions 6 Eating, shopping, staying & a brief history 2 Well worth a visit 8 Lichfield District attractions map 3 Getting here 9 Events and festivals 4 Lichfield City attractions map Welcome to Lichfield, a vibrant city and district in the heart of England. Lichfield Cathedral Lichfield City Discover over 1,300 years of history in the only medieval three-spired cathedral in the UK. lichfield-cathedral.org Drayton Manor Park, home of Thomas Land Tamworth Experience over 100 rides and attractions for all the family, from mini thrill seeker rides to tot friendly attractions in Thomas Land, plus a 15-acre Zoo to explore. draytonmanor.co.uk The National Memorial Arboretum Alrewas The UK's year-round centre of Remembrance with 150 acres, over 380 memorials and an abundance of wildlife. thenma.org.uk The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum Lichfield City The family home of Samuel Johnson best known for his Dictionary of the English Language, now a museum to his life and times. samueljohnsonbirthplace.org.uk Beacon Park Lichfield City Set in more than 70 acres of beautiful gardens and open space, enjoy golf, trails, a large children’s play area, a programme of events and more. lichfieldhistoricparks.co.uk Erasmus Darwin House Lichfield City A museum that was once the family home of doctor, inventor and published poet, Erasmus Darwin. erasmusdarwin.org Coronavirus (Covid-19) This guide is correct at the time of publishing. However, due to changing national restrictions, we recommend contacting all venues directly before your visit for up to date information.
    [Show full text]
  • Dale Head House Foolow | Eyam | Hope Valley | S32 5QB DALE HEAD HOUSE
    Dale Head House Foolow | Eyam | Hope Valley | S32 5QB DALE HEAD HOUSE Set within two acres of beautiful gardens and grounds and completely enveloped by nothing but mile upon mile of rolling countryside is Dale Head House, an extremely well proportioned and immaculately presented family home that over time has been sympathetically updated. A large four bedroomed detached house beautifully appointed with spacious open rooms which stands prominently in two acres of garden and paddock and has spectacular views over the limestone plateau in all directions and close to the sought after Foolow village. The property has been enlarged over the years and has evolved to offer a superbly appointed family home and would suit those actively retired and discerning buyers with equestrian interests. Rooms have been opened to offer spacious modern areas for living and to offer unrivalled views of the Peak District. Modernised tastefully and with facilities and utilities right up to date this is a lovely opportunity to settle in a remarkable location where there are endless recreational facilities, good schools and major commercial centres within easy reach just outside the Peak District National Park. Ground floor A central hall has a stair to the first floor and leads onto a comfortable sitting room, this room has a dual aspect, a lovely cast iron fireplace and the floor is oak boarded. In contrast the dining room has been opened out to the very large farmhouse kitchen. This is a remarkable hub of this family home and a natural place for gathering and social dining around the log burning stove.
    [Show full text]
  • Orlando Background Ch. 3-4.Docx
    Useful Background for Virginia Woolf, Orlando, ch. 3-4 p. 126 Order of the Bath: https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Most-Honourable-Order-of-the-Bath pp. 134-37 The Masque of Truth: https://www.britannica.com/art/masque pp. 142-46 Orlando’s musings about Nature: “Modern systematic philosophical aesthetics not only first emerges in the context of the Enlightenment, but also flowers brilliantly there. the eighteenth century . thinks of itself as the ‘century of philosophy’ . Philosophical aesthetics flourishes in the period because of its strong affinities with the tendencies of the age. ‘Aesthetics’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘senses’, because . a science of the beautiful would be a science of the sensible, a science of sensible cognition. The Enlightenment also enthusiastically embraces the discovery and disclosure of rational order in nature . It seems to many theorists in the Enlightenment that the faculty of taste, the faculty by which we discern beauty, reveals to us some part of this order, a distinctive harmony, unities amidst variety. Thus, in the phenomenon of aesthetic pleasure, human sensibility discloses to us rational order, thus binding together two enthusiasms of the Enlightenment.” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/#BeaAesEnl) p. 167 London coffee houses: https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/English-Coffeehouses-Penny-Universities/ p. 198 Literary salons: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bluestocking-British-literary-society Writers Orlando glimpses and/or encounters: John Dryden (d. 1700)—poet (first poet laureate of England), literary critic, translator, playwright, who dominated the literary world of the Restoration. Joseph Addison (d. 1719)—famous for founding The Spectator magazine with Richard Steele.
    [Show full text]
  • Anna Seward and the Poetics of Sensibility and Control Andrew O
    Criticism Volume 58 | Issue 2 Article 9 2016 Anna Seward and the Poetics of Sensibility and Control Andrew O. Winckles Adrian College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism Recommended Citation Winckles, Andrew O. (2016) "Anna Seward and the Poetics of Sensibility and Control," Criticism: Vol. 58 : Iss. 2 , Article 9. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol58/iss2/9 ANNA SEWARD At the 2011 meeting of the North American Society for the Study AND THE POETICS of Romanticism, Anne K. Mellor OF SENSIBILITY reflected on how the field has AND CONTROL changed since her foundational Andrew O. Winckles 1993 study Romanticism and Gender. She commented that, though women writers such as Anna Seward and the End of the Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Eighteenth Century by Claudia and Mary Shelley have cemented Thomas Kairoff. Baltimore, MD: themselves as legitimate objects Johns Hopkins University Press, of study, this has largely been at 2012. Pp. 328. $58 cloth. the expense of a broader under- standing of how women writers were working during the period. In addition to the Big Six male Romantics, we have in many cases simply added the Big Three female Romantics.1 Though this has begun to change in the last ten years, with important studies appearing about women like Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Robinson, Joanna Baillie, and Hannah More, we still know shockingly little about women writers’ lives, cultural con- texts, and works. A case in point is Anna Seward, a poet and critic well known and respected in her own lifetime, but whose critical neglect in the nineteenth and twentieth centu- ries has largely shaped how recent critics interact with her work.
    [Show full text]
  • Anna Seward and the End of the Eighteenth Century Kairoff, Claudia T
    Anna Seward and the End of the Eighteenth Century Kairoff, Claudia T. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Kairoff, Claudia T. Anna Seward and the End of the Eighteenth Century. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Project MUSE., <a href=" https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/12865 Access provided at 24 Oct 2019 11:50 GMT with no institutional affiliation This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Bibliography Adams, Malise Forbes, and Mary Mauchline. “Kauffman’s Decorative Work.” In Angelica Kauffman: A Continental Artist in Georgian England, edited by Wendy Wassyng Roworth, 113–40. London: Reaktion, 1993. Alexander, David. “Chronological Checklist of Singly Issued English Prints after Angelica Kauffman.” In Angelica Kauffman: A Continental Artist in Georgian En- gland, edited by Wendy Wassyng Roworth, 179–89. London: Reaktion, 1993. ———. “Kauffman and the Print Market in Eighteenth-century England.” In Angelica Kauffman: A Continental Artist in Georgian England, edited by Wendy Wassyng Roworth, 141–78. London: Reaktion, 1993. Ashmun, Margaret. The Singing Swan: An Account of Anna Seward and Her Acquain- tance with Dr. Johnson, Boswell, and Others of Their Time. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1931. Austen, Jane. Letters. Edited by Deirdre Le Faye. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ———. Sense and Sensibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Backscheider, Paula R. Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry: Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Backscheider, Paula R., and Catherine E. Ingrassia, eds. British Women Poets of the Long Eighteenth Century: An Anthology.
    [Show full text]
  • Peter Walker CV
    PETER WALKER f.r.s.a m.r.b.s a.r.b.s.a sculptor 07968 277610 www.sculptorandartist.com pwalkersculptor@ msn.com 7 The Close / Lichfield / Staffs / WS13 7LD Current ongoing public art / commissions St Chad Commission for a 9ft Bronze Statue / Lichfield Cathedral (completion 2021) Pity of War 7ft bronze sculpture commemorating those who have lost their lives as a consequence of war - National Memorial Arboretum (circa 2021) Shirebrook Mining Memorial 15ft artwork / memorial to the Shirebrook miners and families - in development 2020-2022 ‘The Spirit of Tamworth’ 9ft bronze sculpture of Mercian King - to celebrate the towns history – exp completion 2022 Lichfield Cathedral 5 year placement as sculptor and artist in residence (2016-21) Lichfield Cathedral Artistic Director - ongoing - overseeing the Thematic and Cathedral annual vision and developing annual programming and implantation of visual arts and extended arts practice Sheffield Cathedral Artistic Director (consultant role) (2020-2023) Liverpool Cathedral Artistic and Creative Advisor - 2021-2023 Current and future installation artworks Solo Exhibition Liverpool Cathedral - major sculpture and fine art exhibition 2022 PEACE DOVES Major 25m installation artwork at Liverpool Cathedral 2021 PEACE DOVES Installation at Derby Cathedral Sept 2021 The Leaves of the TreesA touring reflective memorial to the Cornovirus Pandemic - touring to - Exeter Cathedral, Sheffield Cathedral, Lichfield Cathedral, Carlisle Cathedral, Rochester Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, Southwell Minster, Winchester Cathedral,
    [Show full text]
  • Erasmus Darwin's Romanticism
    Rhyme and Reason: Erasmus Darwin’s Romanticism Noel Jackson ore remarkable, it may seem, than the sudden disappearance of Mscientific poetry from the late-eighteenth-century English liter- ary landscape is the fact that it was ever widely read in the first place. “Philosophical poetry,” as it was then known, and especially the work of its most famous practitioner, Erasmus Darwin, has been scorned as a gimmicky, tedious, frequently laughable exercise. This ugly stepsister of didactic verse amalgamates poetic fancy and scientific fact, yoking versified descriptions to prose notes detailing the contemporary state of research in natural philosophy, industrial technology, botany, chem- istry, and medicine, to name only a few subjects of this poetry. In an often-cited letter to John Thelwall, Samuel Taylor Coleridge boasted of his catholic taste in poetry, professing an almost equal appreciation for “the head and fancy of Akenside, and the heart and fancy of Bowles,” among others1 — but none for such fanciful productions of the brain as Darwin’s paean to the steam engine, in part 1 of The Botanic Gar- den, The Economy of Vegetation.2 Coleridge’s disappointed wish, recorded 1 Coleridge to Thelwall, December 17, 1796, in Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956 – 71), 1:279. Here- after cited as STCL. Coleridge’s opinion of The Botanic Garden is concise enough: “I absolutely nauseate Darwin’s poem” (Coleridge to Thelwall, May 13, 1796, in STCL, 1:216). 2 Darwin published part 2 of the poem, The Loves of the Plants, first, in 1789.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bluestocking Salons of Eighteenth-Century Britain
    The Daily Star, Dhaka, Saturday 29 September 2018 https://www.thedailystar.net/literature/news/the-bluestocking-salons-eighteenth-century-britain- 1640020 12:00 AM, September 29, 2018 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, September 29, 2018 The Bluestocking Salons of Eighteenth-Century Britain Md. Mahmudul Hasan I enjoyed reading my teacher and mentor Fakrul Alam's “The Literary Club of 18th-Century London” (Daily Star, 20 August 2018). Referring to our age-old practice of having literary addas (chatting circles) and London's “The Club” better known as “Literary Club” which Samuel Johnson (1709-84) and Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) founded in 1764, he pointed to a comparable literary tradition of Bengal and Britain. It is believed that Johnson was inspired by Francis Bacon's precept that “reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man” and used to devote “most attention to how to communicate useful and pleasurable knowledge successfully.” So mainly because of Johnson's witticisms, sense of humour and the entertaining conversations of the Club, it received wide coverage in the national and international media of the time. Johnson's and Reynolds' Club attracted other great writers such as Adam Smith (1723-90), Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74), Edward Gibbon (1737-94) and James Boswell (1740-95). However, the fact remains that it was an all-male circle of interlocutors. The title of Professor Alam's essay stirred in me an anticipation that it would touch on the eighteenth-century bluestocking circles which were perhaps equally vibrant. It did not do so, to which I drew his attention.
    [Show full text]
  • The Perfect Wife”
    “THE PERFECT WIFE” BY RACHAEL CARNES ESTIMATED RUNNING TIME — 90 MINUTES CAST — SIX PERFORMERS Rachael Carnes, member: Dramatists Guild, National New Play Network, Playwrights Center, AWP 1050 W 17th Ave, Eugene OR 97402, 541-221-5792 www.rachaelcarnes.com [email protected] © 2017, All Rights Reserved. SUMMARY As revolution between England and its American colonies simmers, candy-colored Georgian society pits the woeful, starving masses against the excessive powers of the rich elite. One bright young man, Sir Thomas Day, rebuffed at every turn from would- be wives, despite his fortune, grows frustrated, and hatches a plan to steal an orphan, and raise her to be the Perfect Wife. Based on real events, this work of historical fiction opens in the Shrewsbury Foundling Hospital, with Day on the hunt. CHARACTERS Thomas Day A tall, dark-haired, pock-marked man of 21, disheveled, with stringy, matted long hair, dirty fingernails and drab, misshapen and fraying, but expensive, clothes. Sabrina (Anne) An “orphaned” girl, 12 years old, red-haired, freckled, dressed in a rough-hewn smock and no shoes. DUAL ROLES (MAN) Richard Etheridge A wealthy Irish inventor of useless mechanicals and Day’s foppish friend, a few years his elder, powdered and be- wigged, spritely as a grasshopper, he dresses in the au courante dandy Georgian men’s style — trussed in a corset, with fat, padded calves and a stuffed chest. Ferry Master Middle-aged, muscular, he wears a threadbare, high-cut sailor’s uniform, heavy black fisherman’s shoes and a wide, flat black hat over a dusty white bonnet.
    [Show full text]
  • Literature in Context: a Chronology, C1660­1825
    Literature in Context: A Chronology, c1660­1825 Entries referring directly to Thomas Gray appear in bold type­face. 1660 Restoration of Charles II. Patents granted to re­open London theatres. Actresses admitted onto the English and German stage. Samuel Pepys begins his diary (1660­ 1669). Birth of Sir Hans Sloane (1660­1753), virtuoso and collector. Vauxhall Gardens opened. Death of Velàzquez (1559­1660), artist. 1661 Birth of Daniel Defoe (c1661­1731), writer. Birth of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661­1720), writer. Birth of Sir Samuel Garth (1661­1719). Louis XIV crowned in France (reigns 1661­1715). 1662 Publication of Butler’s “Hudibras” begins. The Royal Society is chartered. Death of Blaise Pascal (1623­1662), mathematician and philosopher. Charles II marries Catherine of Braganza and receives Tangier and Bombay as part of the dowry. Peter Lely appointed Court Painter. Louis XIV commences building at Versailles with Charles Le Brun as chief adviser. 1663 Milton finishes “Paradise Lost”. Publication of the Third Folio edition of Shakespeare. The Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, opened on the Drury Lane site with a revival of Fletcher’s “The Humorous Lieutenant”. Birth of Cotton Mather (1663­1728), American preacher and writer. 1664 Birth of Sir John Vanbrugh (1664­1726), dramatist and architect. Birth of Matthew Prior (1664­1721), poet. Lully composes for Molière’s ballets. “Le Tartuffe” receives its first performance. English forces take New Amsterdam and rename it New York. Newton works on Theory of Gravity (1664­1666). 1665 The Great Plague breaks out in London. Newton invents differential calculus. The “Journal des Savants”, the first literary periodical, is published in Paris.
    [Show full text]