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Labouring Things LABOURING THINGS LABOURING THINGS: WORK AND THE MATERIAL WORLD IN MARY LEAPOR’S POETRY By KRISTA PAQUIN, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctorate of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Krista Paquin, July 2018 ii McMaster University DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (2018) Hamilton, Ontario (English) TITLE: Labouring Things: Work and the Material World in Mary Leapor’s Poetry AUTHOR: Krista Paquin, B.A., M.A. SUPERVISOR: Dr. Eugenia Zuroski. NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 250. iii LAY ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on the life and works of Mary Leapor (1722-1746) and builds upon recent interest in the cultural work of particular literary forms by examining the emergence of the labouring-class writer and the rise of a new poetic mode, the labour poem. Existing scholarship has begun to explore the many ways these texts represent class-based and gendered oppression, hardship, and work, and how these writers were able to combine several literary traditions to speak out against adverse conditions. By emphasising the material history of inanimate objects and nonhuman animals found within labouring-class writing, my project seeks to demonstrate how Leapor and other labouring-class writers used their poetry about the labours they performed in order to speak to something more than labour, such as what it means to be a subject in a world that is circumscribed by things like status, class and gender. ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the life and works of eighteenth-century labouring-class poet Mary Leapor. Leapor’s ability to use everyday objects to write poetry that speaks to important social and cultural transformations of the period is one of the most remarkable and interesting aspects of her poetry, and it sets her apart from other labouring-class writers. Therefore, while this dissertation situates Leapor as a female laborer who writes poetry about the labour she performs, it is more interested in how she uses her poetry about the labour she performs—and particularly how she offers her own version of “thing theory”—in order to speak to a number of problems of which labour is just one. By iv spotlighting the complex role of objects in Leapor’s poetry, this dissertation shows how she uses those objects to articulate new conceptions of the labouring body’s relationship to authorship and authority, claim authorship as a form of useful labour, and legitimize her own gendered and class-inflected authority as a subject in literary and intellectual discourse. While acknowledging the context of material history, I focus on the ways Leapor uses particular things to rethink the possibilities of labouring-class life, identity, literary expression, and what it might have meant for her to imagine a new kind of human subjectivity that is itself inseparable from the concept of labour. Moreover, Leapor’s work shows that she identifies labouring individuals as part of a community whose experience is heavily organized socially around labour but argues that their lived experience has provided them with a particular identity and perspective. Ultimately, this dissertation works to decenter our own moment in the history of ideas by showing how Leapor was theorizing about forms of situated knowledge over two hundred years before it entered academic discourse in the 20th century through feminist theories of embodied ways of knowing. Leapor’s poetry is not just an object that should be studied through a theoretical lens; it should be understood as a theory of situated knowledge transmitting ideas from its own materially embedded position. Leapor’s poetry lives on as a labouring thing— changing, growing, and theorizing as living humans do—inviting its readers to contemplate the complex components of being an embodied thinker. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would never have been able to finish my dissertation without the guidance of my committee members, help from friends, and support from my family. Without coffee and conversations, this dissertation would not have been possible. It is impossible to know for certain how many gallons of coffee were consumed in the making of this dissertation, just as it is impossible to distinguish all the different voices that have been poured into it. But what is for certain, is those two things—coffee and conversation—have created here a signature blend of words guaranteed to stimulate intellectual thought and debate. That being said, the first person I would like to thank is my sister, Melissa Flore, for not only being my biggest fan, but also for providing me with my entire coffee supply for the last four years, which, without, this dissertation may never have existed. My sincerest gratitude extends to my supervisor, Dr. Gena Zuroski, as well as Dr. Peter Walmsley, for their hard work and knowledge they brought to my dissertation as well as their valuable guidance and encouragement. I would like to thank Dr. Zuroski for all of the long conversations in her office, for letting me ask her the hard questions, and for her extraordinary ability to synthesize an onslaught of my scattered and disconnected thoughts into coherence and a logic that I then could understand. I am forever grateful to her for lending her brilliant mind to my project and helping me bring it into existence. I would like also to thank Dr. Walmsley for his continued support, wise counsel, and sympathetic ear. Similarly, I would like to thank Dr. Anne Savage for her commitment to my dissertation, her helpful advice, and for making her office a place of refuge and solace. Her friendly conversation and furry friends, namely Flynn, was a source of great support throughout this process. I would also like to thank friends and family for their willingness to listen to me talk about my ideas and writing. I would like to thank Mary-Ann Jazvac, for her generous support and her eagerness to learn about Leapor and her work alongside me. I am most grateful to her for all of the middle-of-the-night sandwiches and discussions about animals, things, and poetic identity, just so that I could feel more comfortable and confident with my work, despite her very apparent late-night fatigue. A special thank you to Jeremy Haynes as well for his check-ins to make sure I was still living, his unwavering encouragement and reassurance. Finally, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my mom, who is the most honest and hard-working woman I know. It is because of her that I have the work ethic necessary to produce a dissertation such as this one. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Mary Leapor and the Role of Objects in Eighteenth-Century Labouring- Class Poetry………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1: It-Poets and the Battle for Literary Authority……………………………….18 i. Labouring Things……………………………………………………………..19 ii. It-Poems: Performing a Labouring Authority ………………………………..39 iii. The Cultural Work of It-poets / It-Poems…………………………………….58 Chapter 2: The Erotics of Everyday Things……………………………………………74 i. Eroticism in Leapor’s Poetry: Critical Debate……………………………….77 ii. The (Auto)erotics of Poem Writing………………………………………….82 iii. The Work of Sapphic Dialogue …………………………………………….109 iv. The Pleasures and Labours of Literary Maternity…………………………..127 Chapter 3: Tasteful Animals, or Food Philosophers…………………………………...135 i. Consuming Bodies and Tasting Thoughts…………………………………..141 ii. The Work of Taste…………………………………………………………..177 iii. The Culture of Bees and Labourers…………………………………………190 Conclusion: The Enlightened Woman of Labour……………………………………...205 Appendix A: Selection of Mary Leapor’s Poems……………………………………...218 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………240 vii Ph.D. Thesis, K. Paquin; McMaster University, English and Cultural Studies Introduction: Mary Leapor and the Role of Objects in Eighteenth-Century Labouring- Class Poetry Methought there lay before my Eyes A Nail of more than common Size; 'Twas one that nails’ our Garden Door, And oft my Petticoat has tore: When sudden (it is true, my Friend) It rear'd itself, and stood an end, And tho' no Mouth I cou'd descry, It talk'd as fast as you or I: And thus began—As I am told ' You Poets seldom deal in Gold; ' That's not the Price of empty Songs, ' But to Sir Thrifty Gripe belongs; ' Bright Silver is Sir Wary's Claim, ' And Copper for the lab'ring Dame; ' If so (that each may have their due) ' We rusty Nails’ belong to you; (Leapor, “The Ten-Penny Nail” 15-30) In Mary Leapor’s poem “The Ten-Penny Nail,” a talking nail appears in labouring- class poet Mira’s dream in the form of a muse, relating its “strange adventures” in order to inspire Mira to bring a great poem into being. Curiously, as can be seen in the passage above, the first subject the nail broaches after being endowed with a voice is to situate itself within a specific group or category of people and things. The nail classifies four different social categories, gold—the wealthy, silver—the middling sorts, copper—the labouring and lower classes, and rusted iron— “you poets.” The nail’s distinction between these social groups is determined by financial wealth because it symbolically links each group with precious metals of successively decreasing values. In the eighteenth century, money, or physical capital, was not standardized like it is today, and, so, if one were to barter and trade, or “deal in gold” effectively, one needed to possess great knowledge of the relative values of coins as well as other local currency. In the poem, the 1 Ph.D. Thesis, K. Paquin; McMaster University, English and Cultural Studies nail explains that “Gold” belongs to the class of the landed gentry and elite, where people like “Sir Thrifty Gripe” guard and hoard their fortunes in an effort to maintain their elevated position in the world.
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