Stephen Karian University of Missouri

Who Was Swift’s “Corinna”?1

Abstract. The date, occasion, and satiric target of Swift’s poem “Corinna” are explained, correcting the mistakes of earlier editors. The poem attacks Elizabeth Thomas for selling some of ’s letters to , and it was written in 1727 rather than 1711 or 1712, as is usually supposed. The original and revised versions of the poem are explicated in full for the first time.

I

Scholars have argued that “Corinna” in Swift’s short eponymous poem is either Delarivier Manley, , Martha Fowke, Elizabeth Thomas, or a com- posite of these authors.2 Manley is most often identified as Corinna, though this identification poses numerous biographical and interpretative problems since Swift otherwise was on quite good terms with Manley. They both worked as writers supporting the Tory ministry of Queen Anne, and Swift’s references to her were generally favourable.3 An additional and related problem about “Corinna” con- cerns its date. When first published in the “Last” volume (1728) of the Swift-Pope

1 The textual research for this article greatly benefited from the archives of the Swift Poems Project, edited by James Woolley, John Irwin Fischer, and me. I thank James Woolley and Valerie Rumbold for their advice and encouragement. 2 The most important discussions of this poem are Poems, ed. Williams, I, 148–50; John R. Elwood, “Swift’s ‘Corinna,’ ” Notes and Queries, 200 (1955), 529–30; Marcia Heinemann, “Swift’s ‘Corinna’ Again,” Notes and Queries, 217 (1972), 218–21; Poems, ed. Rogers, p. 650; and J. A. Downie, “Swift’s ‘Corinna’ Reconsidered,” Swift Studies, 22 (2007), 161–68. Williams and Rogers identify Corinna as Manley. Elwood believes she is Haywood. Heinemann and Downie argue that she is a composite of different female authors who worked for Edmund Curll. Downie in addition presents a number of good reasons why Manley is not the poem’s target. 3 Generally favourable, but not uniformly so. Writing to Joseph Addison on 22 August 1710, Swift says that “I read your Charactr in Mrs Manly’s noble Memoirs of Europe. It seems to me as if she had about two thousand Epithets, and fine words putt up in a bag, and that she puled them out by handfulls, and strowd them on her Paper, where about once in five hundred times they happen to be right” (Correspondence, ed. Woolley, I, 287). In the Journal to Stella for 28 January 1712, Swift writes that “Poor Mrs. Manley the author is very ill of a dropsy and sore leg; the printer [John Barber] tells me he is afraid she cannot live long. I am heartily sorry for her; she has very generous principles for one of her sort; and a great deal of good sense and invention: she is about forty, very homely and very fat” (Journal to Stella, ed. Williams, II, 474). Swift refers to Manley’s Tory writings in Journal to 418 Stephen Karian

Miscellanies, the poem was undated. But in Volume Two of George Faulkner’s 1735 edition of Swift’s Works, the poem is dated 1712. Rightly noting that some of Faulkner’s dates “are clearly wrong, and the result of pure guess-work,”4 Harold Williams dates “Corinna” to 1711, though without specifying a clear reason for doing so. Dating the poem to 1711 or 1712 places it during the time of Swift’s contact with Manley, but we have no knowledge of any strife between the two writers during these two years that are well documented in the Journal to Stella. If Swift wrote the poem in the 1720s, he attacked a friend whom he had not seen since 1714. If he wrote it after 1724, he satirized Manley after her death. For these reasons and others, Williams acknowledges that “it is difficult to divine the reason for Swift’s attack” on Manley and that the poem “is difficult to explain.”5 This essay tries to establish the poem’s date, satiric target, and occasion. Drawing on a range of evidence, I argue that Corinna is not Manley, but Elizabeth Thomas. In addition, I situate the poem’s composition according to the known chronology of various events, especially concerning Swift’s contacts with Pope. Finally, I examine later revisions to the poem. The study of “Corinna” has been largely shaped by uncertainty; I try to offer a more solid foundation for interpreting this poem.

II

Editors of “Corinna” are responsible for much of the interpretative confusion sur- rounding the poem. John Hawkesworth was the first to connect “Corinna” to Man- ley, as Williams notes. But Marcia Heinemann correctly states that Hawkesworth (contra Williams) does not suggest that Manley was Corinna.6 Rather, Hawkes- worth glosses only one line of the poem to explain the reference to “Atalantis”: “The Atalantis was written by Mrs. Manley; and may be considered as a pander

Stella, I, 244–45 (16 April 1711), I, 306 (3 July 1711); II, 390–91 (22 October 1711), and II, 402 (3 November 1711). Ruth Herman briefly discusses Manley’s relationship with Swift in The Business of a Woman: The Political Writings of Delarivier Manley (Newark: University of Delaware Press, and London: Associated University Presses, 2003), pp. 26–29. See also Constance Clark, Three Augustan Playwrights (New York: Peter Lang, 1986), pp. 130–32; Melinda Alliker Rabb, “The Manl(e)y Style: Delariviere Manley and ,” Pope, Swift, and Women Writers, ed. Donald C. Mell (Newark: University of Delaware Press, and London: Associated University Presses, 1996), pp. 125–53; Carole Fabricant, “The Shared Worlds of Manley and Swift,” Pope, Swift, and Women Writers, ed. Mell, pp. 154–78; and Paula McDowell, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace, 1678–1730 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 273–77. Herman, Clark, and Fabricant accept the identification of Corinna as Manley; McDowell finds Manley to be the best specific candidate, but thinks Corinna is a composite figure; Rabb does not mention the poem. 4 Poems, ed. Williams, I, xxxii. 5 Poems, ed. Williams, I, 148, 149. 6 Heinemann, “Swift’s ‘Corinna’ Again,” p. 218.