Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson Jessica Lauren Cook University of South Florida, [email protected]
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 7-8-2014 Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson Jessica Lauren Cook University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Scholar Commons Citation Cook, Jessica Lauren, "Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson" (2014). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5205 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson by Jessica Lauren Cook A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with a concentration in Literature Department of English College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Laura Runge, Ph.D. Pat Rogers, Ph.D. Regina Hewitt, Ph.D. Marty Gould, Ph.D. Date of Approval: July 8, 2014 Keywords: eighteenth-century British poetry, place, human geography, ecocriticism Copyright © 2014, Jessica Lauren Cook ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe the idea for this dissertation to Laura Runge’s Literature of Place: Florida course and Pat Rogers’ Eighteenth-Century Satire course; at a serendipitous moment, the theoretical framework of place and ecocriticism interconnected with eighteenth-century poetry for me, and a seminar paper on Mary Leapor’s “Crumble Hall” developed into a dissertation. I am incredibly grateful to Dr. Runge for her constant support and excellent advice over the past five years, and her guidance through more than just the dissertation. I am also incredibly thankful for the comfort and tea she provided when I needed those as well. I am deeply appreciative of Dr. Rogers’ kind encouragement of my original idea for this project, and for all of the support he has provided. I would also like to thank Regina Hewitt for her guidance and direction through the field of ecocriticism during my comprehensive exams, and for being such an attentive and thoughtful reader. I am also indebted to Marty Gould for his insightful reading and perceptive questions, and for the career advice he has offered on many occasions. I would also like to thank the faculty and staff of the English Department who have helped me in so many different ways over the past five years. I am also grateful to my fellow graduate students, who have become dear friends in addition to colleagues. I particularly owe many thanks to my fellow members of the Dissertation Support Group, and to Katherine McGee and Joy Sanchez who have been with me through every stage of the program. I would also like to thank the Graduate School for awarding me the generous Presidential Fellowship, which has allowed me to focus more of my time and energy on this project. I am also grateful for a visiting fellowship at Chawton House Library while writing this dissertation; I found a kind and intelligent community of people there in addition to a great library of books. I am thankful for the opportunity the fellowship gave me to think more about the influence of place on the way we write. I have saved them for last but all expressions of thanks really begin and end with my family. My parents Dale and Lessie Cook have been untiring in their love and encouragement. I am deeply grateful for all the ways they have supported me and believed in me, and this dissertation is dedicated to them. I would also like to thank my brother Josh, who has taught me much about finding the humor in life. I believe I am a better reader of satire because of him. Finally, I would like to thank Cassie Childs and Allison Wise, who have been my family in Florida as well as my friends. They are a constant source of joy and fun, and their friendship has been the most welcome surprise that has accompanied a graduate degree in English. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Poem as City Guide ................................... 12 Mapping the Town Eclogues: “the art of living in London” ............................................ 14 The Court: Social Politics ................................................................................................. 23 Coffee Houses and Tea Tables: Gendered Social Spaces ................................................. 30 Shops and “Pen’norths:” Retail Space and Material Goods ............................................. 46 Parks and Theatres: The Urban Stage ............................................................................... 58 Conclusion: Bidding “Adieu” to London and the World of Fashion ................................ 62 Chapter Two: Mary Leapor and the Poem as Meeting Place ....................................................... 66 Everyday Movement in Place: “Crumble Hall” as Place-Ballet ....................................... 69 The Everyday Labor of Poetic Composition .................................................................... 77 The Materiality of Poetry .................................................................................................. 87 Conclusion: Poetry as Meeting Place ............................................................................. 100 Chapter Three: Anna Letitia Barbauld and the Poem as Sacred Space ...................................... 106 Sacred Space and Ecological Thinking ........................................................................... 109 Sacred Space as the Ecological Sublime ........................................................................ 123 Sacred Space as Pilgrimage ............................................................................................ 130 Conclusion: The Poetic Ecosystem and an Ecology of Place ......................................... 142 Chapter Four: Mary Robinson and the Poem as Daily Practice ................................................. 145 The Practice of Place in the Urban Periodical ................................................................ 147 Walking/Writing the City ............................................................................................... 157 The Daily Work of the Poet in Place .............................................................................. 167 Conclusion: “a map of busy life” .................................................................................... 179 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 181 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 185 i ABSTRACT Women Poets and Place in Eighteenth-Century Poetry considers how four women poets of the long eighteenth century—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary Leapor, Anna Letitia Barbauld, and Mary Robinson—construct various places in their poetry, whether the London social milieu or provincial England. I argue that the act of place making, or investing a location with meaning, through poetry is also a way of writing a place for themselves in the literary public sphere and in literary history. Despite the fact that more women wrote poetry than in any other genre in the period, women poets remain a relatively understudied area in eighteenth- century scholarship. My research is informed by place theory as defined by the fields of Human Geography and Ecocriticism; I consider how the poem reproduces material space and the nonhuman environment, as well as how place effectively shapes the individual. These four poets represent the gamut of career choices in this era, participating in manuscript and print culture, writing for hire and for leisure, publishing by subscription and through metropolitan booksellers. Each of these textual spaces serves as an illustration of how the poet’s place, both geographically and socially speaking, influences the medium of circulation for the poetic text and the authorial persona she constructs in the process. By charting how each of these four poets approaches place—whether as the subject of their poetry or the poetic space itself—I argue that they offer us a way to destabilize and diversify the literary landscape of eighteenth-century poetry. ii INTRODUCTION At Chawton Cottage in Hampshire, the house Jane Austen lived in for the last eight years of her life, a small writing table sits by the window in the front sitting room. At this table, crowded by other furniture and the daily routines of domestic life, Austen wrote Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Emma, and revised Pride and Prejudice for publication (Byrne, Jane Austen 258). Almost a century later, Virginia Woolf marveled that Austen, and other women like her, managed to write anything at all without “a room of one’s own.” Woolf points out, “If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room” where she was “always