Strong John of Waterloo
By Avellina Balestri
Old tunes, joyful tunes, weaving through the night
The rosy glow of faces beneath the candle light
North winds, cruel winds, howling at the door
The whirl of Yuletide dances across the wooden floor
And sitting by the fireside, amidst the revelry
Strong John takes poor weak Mary upon his bended knee
He’s young, bold, and handsome, a farmer’s strapping son
She’s young, frail, and sickly, with both her parents gone
His blue eyes flash like star-light, his red hair shimmers gold;
Her gray eyes mirror storm-clouds, her skin is pale and cold
But he finds her lips like honey, her hair like rich brown earth
And he whispers that he loves her beside the blazing hearth
Then “crash!” the door is broken in and cheer is turned to gloom
For soldiers in scarlet coats are standing in the room
They’re here to press bold young men to fight bold Bonaparte
And Mary cries, “Don’t take him, for it will break my heart!”
“If we put off our duty now to spare each lass’s heart
Then none would cross the raging sea to fight bold Bonaparte.”
They’ve taken hold of Strong John’s arms and dragged him to the door
And left his pale young lover sobbing on the floor
***
Brave tunes, haunting tunes, piping ‘cross the field
The stern and smoke-stained faces of men who will not yield
And John is the frontlines with other farmers’ sons
He hears the war drums beating, and the clatter of the guns
Their leader is a cold man, or so they all assume
He has a look of iron that penetrates the gloom
The air is damp and heavy; his eyes are quick and keen
He sees Old Boney’s horsemen advancing on the scene
The order then is passed around to form a British Square
John thinks of summer sunsets and Mary’s dark brown hair
He thinks of ale and cornbread, of Paradise and God --
Is there a place in Heaven for those who till the sod?
The officers are shouting; the noise drowns out their words
Old Boney’s men are coming; they draw their shining swords
The piper in the square is playing “Auld Lang Syne”
The redcoats prime their muskets, waiting for a sign
They see a sword flash downward; they fire in accord
The screams of men and horses across the field are heard
They keep the bullets flying, but they are out of time
A French sword flashes downward; John’s blood runs red as wine
***
Faint breath, gasping breath, Mary’s breath is gone
Her dying breath spent asking about the farmer’s son
Like Strong John’s scarlet coat, red blood has stained her dress
She coughed it up while clutching his letter to her breast
Her skin is white and ghostly; her figure worn and thin
Her lunges are drowned with fluid; her heart has burst within
Her lips are cracked and blood-stained, her eyes are sightless now
And tiny crystal droplets lay on her furrowed brow
This body would have borne him a daughter or a son
If he had but returned to her and they were joined as one
She sees the shadows parting, and views a gory field
Where gallant men in British Squares still refuse to yield
She sees the steel pierce through him, tearing flesh and bone
She sees the blood run freely; she hears his final groan
She flies across the distance, upon the field she stands
She kisses his pale lips, and squeezes his limp hand
His blue eyes flicker open; he sees her spirit there
He makes a final movement, and strokes her dark-brown hair
Her countenance is brightness, though all else fades away
They wake to find a Shining World, and greet a Glorious Day
***
The battle ends in victory; they find that John is dead
With lifeless Mary at his side, as in a marriage bed
None know where she came from, but together they are laid
And the Iron Duke sheds iron tears for the price that has been paid
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 October 2016
Thursday, 28 April 2016
Joseph Gales, James Montgomery and the Poems that Stood up for Sheffield
I'm thrilled to welcome salon favourite Dr Adam Smith once again, with the tale of Joseph Gales, James Montgomery and the Poems that Stood up for Sheffield
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In the final years of the 18th century the editors of two of Sheffield most radical newspapers put everything on the line to stand up for the citizens of Britain’s steel city.
Fearing that the actions of their monarchy and government represented a shift towards tyranny and a general lack of interest in the welfare of British citizens outside of London, Joseph Gales and James Montgomery took to the press to hold their government to account.
In the pages of the Sheffield Register (1787-1794) and the Sheffield Iris (1794-1825) Gales and Montgomery campaigned for fair treatment from local and national authorities whilst also ensuring that all Sheffield citizens were aware of their rights and constitutional entitlements.
As Gales himself stated in his final editorial, it was his paper’s ambition to ‘rescue my Countrymen from the darkness of ignorance and to awaken them to a sense of their privileges as human beings, and, as such, of their importance in the grand scale of creation.’ More than anything else, Gales wanted to prove to his readers that their city mattered and that they deserved the respect and representation of their country’s leaders.
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| Montgomery |
Writing under the close scrutiny of suspicious local authorities at a time of intense censorship both the Register and the Iris presented their most controversial material in verse rather than prose. In a section referred to affectionately by contemporary readers as ‘Poetry Corner’, Gales and Montgomery provided a platform from local protest poets to express in incredible detail the attitudes and anxieties of their time. Reoccurring themes included the need for universal political representation and access to education, racial and religious equality, the abolition of slavery and the importance of worker’s rights.
Ironically, an overarching concern across many of these poems was that the freedom of the press might be in jeopardy. These poems regularly asserted that if the government could not legally be criticized then there remained no safe-guard against tyranny. As one reader contributed in April 1793, this seemed to be increasingly the case:
We may speak (it is true) if we mind what we say;
But to speak all we think, will not suit in our day:
These lines proved prophetic, with the Register coming to an abrupt close just a few months later. Charged with ‘conspiracy against the government’ Gales was forced to abandon the paper to start a new life in America as a fugitive.
Fortunately, within three months the paper would be re-founded by the young James Montgomery as the Sheffield Iris. As a teenager Montgomery had fled from Scotland upon discovering that his parents aspired to move abroad and work as religious missionaries. He had intended to get to London and pursue a career as a poet, but after getting stranded in Rotherham he decided to apply for a job at the Register instead.
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| Montgomery |
As a close friend of Gales and an acolyte of the Register’s politics, Montgomery worked fast and hard to rally funds and support for a new paper, the Sheffield Iris. This new paper would position itself as an explicit continuation of the Register’s ethos and vision. And for this Montgomery was twice sent to prison for publishing allegedly treasonous material.
In 1795 Montgomery was hauled in front of a jury in Doncaster for printing and distributing a poem in support of France, Britain’s enemies at the time. Montgomery’s lawyer proved that not only did Montgomery have no knowledge of the poem in question, but that it had actually been written ten years previously. Remarkably, Montgomery was still found guilty and sent to a prison in York.
Within 18 months of his release he would find himself back in that prison, this time for reporting that British soldiers had charged down a group of unarmed protesters in Sheffield. On the eve of this second trial Montgomery wrote to his close friend, local author John Aston, lamenting that it didn’t matter how strong a defence he presented, “the prosecution is levelled against the Iris; they are determined to crush it” [‘Letter to Joseph Aston’, Sheffield Archives: SLPS/37 (1) 4 (B)].
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| Montgomery Monument |
Sadly, the persecution of Montgomery was little more than history repeating, his sentiments recalling the final to be penned by his former mentor in the final editorial of the Sheffield Register: ‘It is, in these persecuting days, a sufficient crime to have printed a newspaper which has so boldly dared to doubt the infallibility of ministers, and to investigate the justice and policy of their measures.’
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The evolution of Gales’ and Montgomery’s ‘Poetry Corner’ across both the Register and the Iris is currently the subject of a AHRC-funded Cultural Engagement Project in the School of English at the University of Sheffield.
Directed by Dr Hamish Mathison and researched by Dr Adam Smith, the project will produced a freely-accessibly and newly edited digital anthology, due to arrive online on 27 May 2016. In the meantime the project is counting down to this launch by releasing a newly-edited poem every Monday.
Crucially this project is able to give these poems - written by Sheffield residents three centuries ago a second life - free of the constraints of 18th-century serial publications and allowed to speak for themselves for the very first time.
Visit the project website:
Follow the project on social medial:
Twitter: @18C_ShefProtest
Facebook: facebook.com/printprotestpoetry
Book for our launch event, ‘Sheffield: City of Protest’:
Written content of this post copyright © Adam Smith, 2016.
Wednesday, 14 October 2015
“Poor Wand’ring Wretches!"
Francesca Blanch Serrat is my guest today to discuss the author, Charlotte Turner Smith. Francesca is a wonderful friend of the salon and I am honoured to welcome her!
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“Poor Wand’ring Wretches!” : Charlotte Smith’s Coming to Terms with her Exilic Persona through Poetry
Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806) is known for her sentimental novels and for being the hand that brought back the sonnet. She managed to live solely by the pen, but her literary incursions where never limited to her –many- financial needs. She had a remarkable literary involvement in the French Revolution, and always remained true to her political and moral beliefs. In this article, I will analyse her long poem The Emigrants (1793) to see how, through poetry, Smith managed to come to terms with her past and the emotional strains of forced exile.
Smith was born into a family of good means, which provided her with a good education. She was very young when she married Benjamin Smith; a violent, abusive and reckless man. She wrote her first work, Elegiac Sonnets (1784) in prison, where she had moved with his husband when he was condemned because of his debts, and with the profits of its publication, she paid for his release. After that, the Smith family moved to France (1783-1785) to escape the creditors, and in these two years Smith became an exile. When they came back to England, she left her husband and devoted her talent as a writer to support her children, always struggling to make ends meet.
The Emigrants was published in 1793. The poem consists of two books and explores the vicissitudes of the French émigrés in the south of England during the French Revolution. Smith, a supporter of the Revolution’s ideals, sides now with the members of the aristocracy and the clergy who have been forced to leave their land. She not only questions and criticises what will become the Reign of Terror but also feels a connection with these displaced characters. She clearly intertwines her own personal plight with these of the émigrés.
In her analysis of Smith’s poetry Keane argues that “This [dominating trope of exile] can be attributed both to a “Romantic” preoccupation with a generalised condition of alienation and to the more particular impact of revolution and war on the discourse of national belonging.” (Keane 1991: 89). In other words, what theme could be more Romantic that this of the exiled? It merges politics, social unrest, the achievement of freedom and the emphasis on the individual and their feelings. Alienation produces in the subject a profound sense of displacement, and with that, an outburst of emotions one can easily relate to the state of the world in the eighteenth century.
For Charlotte Smith, the construct by means of which she conveys her feelings is a group of individuals, none more important than the other. Her heroes are inclusive and seek comfort in each other. As Sodeman suggests: “Smith inscribes her sense of exclusion into her works through the exiles, emigrants, and wanderers that crowd her novels and poems” (Sodeman 2009: 138). These émigrés are not only somebody she can relate to but they also constitute “the other”, they are the party farthest from her political affiliations. Smith has taken it upon herself to feel pity on them: “poor wand’ring wretches! Whosoe’er ye are,/ That hopeless, houseless, friendless, travel wide” (I:296-297). It is not only her own empathy towards them what she expresses, however. She also looks for the reader’s empathy towards both the émigrés and, perhaps, herself. Quoting Sodeman once again: “The speaker’s experience and history is told partly through identification with the exiles” (Sodeman 2009: 139). She understands their trial because she, too, has looked at her own land from the opposite shore: “Ah! Who knows,/ from sad experience, more than I” (II:169-170), she claims. “I mourn your sorrows; for I too have known/ involuntary exile; and while yet/ England had charms for me, have felt how sad/ it is to look across the dim cold sea, / That melancholy rolls its fluent tides/ Between us and the dear regretted land/ We call our own” (I: 155-161). She acknowledges the differences between these –mostly members of the aristocracy and herself– but the class difference is obliterated because sorrow unites them all: “They, like me, /From fairer hopes and happier prospects driven,/ Shrink from the future, and regret the past” (II:15-16).
In the closing lines of The Emigrants, Charlotte Smith leaves the émigrés apart to use once again her own voice and her own experience to make a plea to the whole of Humankind: “May lovely Freedom, in her genuine charms,/ Aided by stern but equal Justice, drive/ From the ensanguin’d earth the hell-born fiends of Pride, Oppression, Avarice, and Revenge.” (II: 431), and, if Freedom and Justice succeed in governing society, they will “fix/ the reign of Reason, Liberty and Peace!” (II: 445), which are the ending lines. Smith’s invocation of the superior forces of Justice and Freedom can be read as a personal appeal in relation to the system that not only failed to protect her but also imprisoned her. It can also be read as a message directed to the French, a call to yield the arms and be faithful to their principles. Taking the first interpretation as the most interesting one for the purposes of this paper, I suggest that for Smith the past cannot be healed, but there is the possibility to gain a better future, a just new life where Reason, Liberty and Peace rule. Smith’s work is a message to the world to stop injustice and suffering, a message taken from her own experience to Europe at large.
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| Liberty Guiding the People, by Delacroix (1830) |
As Wolfson suggests, Smith “infuses her final visionary hope with figures of female potency” (Wolfson 2000: 541). These figures are Freedom and Justice. I argue that Smith finds in female figures the capacity to return Europe to peace; as Wolfson puts it: “The Emigrants joins an evolving “female” poetry of condemning war as “patriarchal militarism” [however,] pacifism and militarism were not predictable or securely gendered discourses” (Wolfson 2000: 512). Therefore, Smith is appealing to two symbolic female forces (Freedom and Liberty) to fight seemingly symbolic male forces (Pride, Oppression, Avarice and Revenge) to obtain an ungendered result: Reason, Liberty and Peace. She resorts to these symbols at the end of The Emigrants, and they must entail, for her, the stability and primal link to Home, a bond impossible to break through exceptional or constant exile.
The trope of motherhood and femininity in association with both Nature and symbols of empowerment was widely exploited in the literature of the time. Smith is reinterpreting the trope of the abstract muses in order to strengthen her sense of identity: “A wretched Woman, pale and breathless, flies!” (II: 258). And she continues as follows: [...] The desolate mourner; yet, in Death itself,/ True to maternal tenderness, she tries/ to save the unconscious infant from the storm/In which she perishes.” (II: 281). Her symbols are not allegorical figures; they are real women with real experiences, women Smith can relate to.
In conclusion, Charlotte Smith deals with her past as an exile through the empathy that compels her to offer a voice to those exiles victims of The Terror, while being a fervent supporter of that same Revolution. Her poetry is inclusive, comforting, intimate and hopeful. She is a great example of the emerging Romantic movement, but, contrary to other Romantics such as self-centred Byron, she manages to turn her own experience into a social plea.
About the author
Francesca Blanch Serrat is a recent graduate in English Studies specialised in English Literature and Culture and with a minor in Gender Studies from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Catalonia). She also spent a life changing, tea charged academic year in Edinburgh University. She will be starting next year a MA in Advanced English Studies and wishes to become a PhD student. The article above is a piece from her degree dissertation: “But My Soul Wanders, I Demand It Back: Lord Byron and Charlotte Smith’s Poetry in Exile”. Her main focuses of interest are 18th century women writers and English and French Romanticism. She likes cats, Feminism, dead French revolutionaries, socks, and talking about Lord Byron with alarming familiarity.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/akanemi
Academia.edu https://uab.academia.edu/FrancescaBlanchSerrat
Works cited
Primary sources
Smith, Charlotte Turner. The Emigrants: A Poem in Two Books. London: T. Cadell,1793.
Secondary sources
Keane, Angela. “Exiles and émigrés: the wanderings of Charlotte Smith.” In Women Writers and the English Nation in the 1790s: Romantic Belongings. Angela Keane, 81-107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Sodeman, Melissa. “Charlotte Smith’s Literary Exile.” ELH, Vol. 76, No. 1 (Spring, 2009): 131-152.
Wolfson, Susan J. “Charlotte Smith’s Emigrants: Forging Connections at the Borders of Female Tradition.” The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (2000): 509-546.
Friday, 9 October 2015
Darkness and Light: Exploring the Gothic
News of a wonderful exhibition at the John Rylands Library, Manchester!
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Thursday, 16 July to Sunday, 20 December 2015
Housed in the neo-Gothic grandeur of The John Rylands Library, Darkness and Light reveals how Gothic architecture and anatomy inspired and influenced a literary genre, and how the lasting legacy of Gothic can be found in art, films and subculture today.
From the fantastical to the macabre, this intriguing exhibition unearths Gothic treasures from the Library’s Special Collections to investigate subjects as varied as the role of women in the Gothic movement, advances in medical science and classic literature.
Amongst the fascinating items on display is Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first Gothic novel. With a Gothic medieval castle, doomed love and restless spectres of the past, it sets the scene for the genre and sits alongside a whole host of Gothic bestsellers including The Monk, Udolpho and Jekyll and Hyde.
The booklet for this exhibition is available to download as either a PDF or as an accessible, plain text word document:
The exhibition also showcases artwork by students from the University of Salford and a gallery of photographic portraits of 'Goths', celebrating diversity and inviting visitors to explore what Gothic means to them.
Alongside the exhibition, experience a ghostly Gothic tour of the Library or come along to screenings of classic Gothic films, including FW Murnau’s Nosferatu, in the striking Historic Reading Room.
Join the conversation at #JRLGothic
Related Events
2pm-3pm Sunday, 11 October 2015
12noon-1pm Saturday, 7 November 2015
12noon-1pm Saturday, 5 December 2015
12noon-1pm Saturday, 5 December 2015
Tuesday, 6 October 2015
Byron, Rebellion, and the Greeks!
It is a pleasure to welcome Caroline Warfield back to the salon today to share the tale of Byron, Rebellion, and the Greeks! The winner of the Kindle copy of the winner’s choice of Dangerous Works or Dangerous Secrets is Judith Arnopp; thanks to all who entered!
Nature abhors a vacuum. The maxim, first postulated by a physicist, Parmenides, in the fifth century BC, is a truism that has been quoted over and over. If nature abhors a vacuum, politics hates it more. Remove great power from a country or region and a dozen smaller forces will flood in vying for power. Witness the current situation in the Middle East.
Napoleon’s rule, once ended, left behind the seeds of rebellion and power vacuums across Europe. One of the first open rebellions, the Greek Revolution, broke out into warfare in 1821 after simmering for years. What were the issues and why on earth was Lord Byron involved? The answers are complicated, colorful, and not always as romantic as they sound, as I discovered researching background for Dangerous Weakness.
In 1821 the Ottoman Empire ruled what we now call Greece, except for the Ionian Islands along the western coast of the Peloponnesian mainland, which were a British protectorate from 1815 to 1864. There was, in fact, no actual governmental entity known as “Greece” or “Hellas” at that time. There was instead a loose group of provinces with large numbers of Greek-speaking people. Among the forces at work in the region were a weakening of imperial administrative control, the spread of western republican ideas, and the influence of the Greek Orthodox Church, which had been a major factor in the preservation of language and culture. Economics played a part also.
There were a number of attempts at rebellion, but the date for the start of the revolution is generally given as March 21, 1821 when revolts broke out in several different places. The rebels managed to take and hold the Peloponnese, the peninsula to the southwest of the Isthmus of Corinth in modern Greece, which in ancient times was dominated by Sparta. They set up a provisional government. Ten long messy years followed before the Sultan recognized Greek independence and the provisional government in 1832. Internal dissention, factions fostered by European powers, and massacres and betrayal by all sides contributed to the drawn out struggle.
Popular support for Greece ran high in some segments of the classically educated British upper/intellectual classes early on. Romantic notions about ancient Greece certainly contributed. The notable figure is, of course, Lord Byron. There is no doubt he knew his history of the Peloponnesian and Persian Wars, of Pericles and of Themistocles and Salamis. He wrote:
It is tempting to dismiss Byron as an effete romantic who wandered over to Greece, sickened and died. In truth he had a long history of support for social reform and national independence causes. He gave £4,000 of his own money to refit a Greek navy. He joined Alexandros Mavrokordatos, a Greek political and military leader sympathetic to Britain and participated in arming and training troops he planned to lead himself in a planned attack on Lepanto. Before he could do so, he died at Missolonghi. His death, most likely hastened by the questionable practice of bleeding, touched off mourning in both England and Greece.
Where was the British Government in all this? Initially it discouraged the revolt. They last thing Britain wanted was the rise revolutionary governments on the continent. In 1820, however, Britain’s primary concern was not so much the rights of the Ottomans, or even fear of radicalism, but Russian expansionism. Revolution meant opportunity for Russia. Eventually, popular support for Greece—possibly exacerbated by Byron’s death—and the pragmatic need to thwart Russian influence led to support for Greek Independence. Note that the same pragmatic concern would lead it to support the Ottoman side in Crimea twenty years later, again to thwart Russia.
Britain began to intervene on the side of Greece after the Treaty of London in 1827. The Ottoman Empire, believing in its own superior navy declined to support the treaty. The combined efforts of the European powers effectively destroyed the Ottoman navy in Battle of Navarino, but the war continued for five more years. The Treaty of Constantinople gave Greece the victory in 1832. Byron would have celebrated.
For more information see:
Revolution in Greece
http://www.fact-index.com/b/ba/battle_of_navarino.html
Byron and Greece
The Eastern Question in General
And my own interest in the subject
About Dangerous Weakness
If women were as easily managed as the affairs of state—or the recalcitrant Ottoman Empire—Richard Hayden, Marquess of Glenaire, would be a happier man. As it was the creatures—one woman in particular—made hash of his well-laid plans and bedeviled him on all sides.
Lily Thornton came home from Saint Petersburg in pursuit of marriage. She wants a husband and a partner, not an overbearing, managing man. She may be “the least likely candidate to be Marchioness of Glenaire,” but her problems are her own to fix, even if those problems include both a Russian villain and an interfering Ottoman official.
Given enough facts, Richard can fix anything. But protecting that impossible woman is proving almost as hard as protecting his heart, especially when Lily’s problems bring her dangerously close to an Ottoman revolution. As Lily’s personal problems entangle with Richard’s professional ones, and she pits her will against his, he chases her across the pirate-infested Mediterranean. Will she discover surrender isn’t defeat? That might even have its own sweet reward.
Buy Links:
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Nature abhors a vacuum. The maxim, first postulated by a physicist, Parmenides, in the fifth century BC, is a truism that has been quoted over and over. If nature abhors a vacuum, politics hates it more. Remove great power from a country or region and a dozen smaller forces will flood in vying for power. Witness the current situation in the Middle East.
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| Lord Byron at Missolonghi by Theodoros Vryzakis, 1861 |
| I dream'd that Greece might still be free; |
| For standing on the Persians' grave, |
| I could not deem myself a slave. |
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| Lord Byron on his Death-bed by Joseph Denis Odevaere, circa 1826 |
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| The Byron Memorial at Missolonghi, By Fingalo |
http://www.fact-index.com/b/ba/battle_of_navarino.html
Lily Thornton came home from Saint Petersburg in pursuit of marriage. She wants a husband and a partner, not an overbearing, managing man. She may be “the least likely candidate to be Marchioness of Glenaire,” but her problems are her own to fix, even if those problems include both a Russian villain and an interfering Ottoman official.
Canada http://amzn.to/1NwQmMt
India http://amzn.to/1hdwC6C
Read an Extract
“We will marry of course,” he told her. “Quickly, but not so abruptly as to cause comments.” He walked toward the door, expecting her to follow.
“I beg your pardon,” she called out to him. “We will what?”
He turned on his heel. “Miss Thornton, you will be the Marchioness of Glenaire. That is far from ideal, and the difference in our state will no doubt cause talk. We will have to endure it.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why this ‘far from ideal’ demand? Has Lady Sarah refused you?”
“Don’t be coy, Miss Thornton. You have led me into folly at every step. After last night I have no choice. I shall have to marry you. My family—”
“Your family would have kittens if I married you, which I will not.”
“You have respectable, if not the highest, breeding, you will show to advantage when properly dressed, and you will do well as a diplomatic hostess. My family, I was going to say, will have to deal with it.” He stalked away. “So will you.”
“I will not,” Lily shouted after him.
About the Author
Caroline Warfield has at various times been an army brat, a librarian, a poet, a raiser of children, a nun, a bird watcher, an Internet and Web services manager, a conference speaker, an indexer, a tech writer, a genealogist, and, of course, a romantic. She has sailed through the English channel while it was still mined from WWII, stood on the walls of Troy, searched Scotland for the location of an entirely fictional castle (and found it), climbed the steps to the Parthenon, floated down the Thames from the Tower to Greenwich, shopped in the Ginza, lost herself in the Louvre, gone on a night safari at the Singapore zoo, walked in the Black Forest, and explored the underground cistern of Istanbul. By far the biggest adventure has been life-long marriage to a prince among men.
She sits in front of a keyboard at a desk surrounded by windows, looks out at the trees and imagines. Her greatest joy is when one of those imaginings comes to life on the page and in the imagination of her readers.
She sits in front of a keyboard at a desk surrounded by windows, looks out at the trees and imagines. Her greatest joy is when one of those imaginings comes to life on the page and in the imagination of her readers.
Find Caroline on:
Written content of this post copyright © Caroline Warfield, 2015.
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Keats, Endymion, and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
It's my pleasure to welcome Mimi Matthews and the tale of Keats, Endymion, and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
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Nearly 195 years after John Keats’ death, even the most non-poetic amongst us can still quote the first line of Endymion: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever…”
And what an article! Between referencing the “imperturbable driveling idiocy of Endymion” and snidely referring to Keats as “Johnny” and “Mr. John,” John Gibson Lockhart (writing for Blackwood’s) took jabs at Keats’ education, his middle-class upbringing, and even his former career as a licensed apothecary. According to Lockhart, Keats was an “ignorant, unsettled pretender” and an “uneducated and flimsy stripling…without logic enough to analyze a single idea, or imagination enough to form one original image.” He closed his scathing critique with the following prediction:
We venture to make one small prophecy, that his bookseller will not a second time venture 50 quid upon anything he can write. It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr. John, back to plasters, pills, and ointment boxes.For a time, Keats considered doing just that, giving up his poetry and returning to Edinburgh to resume his medical studies. Ultimately, with the support of a small circle of friends, he continued writing and, in spite of poor reviews and even poorer health, went on to produce some of his finest work, including such masterpieces as Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to a Grecian Urn, and Bright Star.
This Grave contains all that was Mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be Engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ in Water.Did the critics drive John Keats to an early grave? Some of his contemporaries certainly thought so. Yet in the end, Keats was not killed off by one critique. Nor was his name writ on water. Instead, his work has immortalized him. He lives on as one of the most beloved and well-known of the nineteenth-century English Romantic poets.
And John Gibson Lockhart? Well, I would venture to guess that if it were not for his connection with John Keats, most of us would not even know who he was.
Author Biography:
Mimi Matthews is an author of contemporary and historical romance. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and The Beau Monde and is currently under contract with a New York literary agency. In her other life, she is an attorney with both a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. She resides in Northern California with her family – which includes an Andalusian dressage horse, a Sheltie, and two Siamese cats.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Written content of this post copyright © Mimi Matthews, 2015.
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
"Ten weeks": The Death of George Crabbe
George Crabbe (Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England, 24th December 1754 - Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England, 3rd February 1832)
George Crabbe was a man of many talents. Poet, surgeon and friend to the stars of the Georgian literary and artistic world, he also had an uncanny knack for predicting the day of his own death!
By the age of seventy seven, the illustrious Crabbe was beginning to slow down physically if not mentally. His life had been a full one, rich with admirers and success and he had a keen enthusiasm for the world around him, whether natural or artistic. With two adult sons to carry on his name, he no doubt felt that his had been a life well-lived.
During the winter of 1832, Crabbe visited his son, George, who had become the curate at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire. Here he accepted George's invitation to preach and conducted two services for the parishioners, who counted themselves as lucky to see Crabbe speak. Crabbe, however, had been feeling increasingly unwell and when his son told him that he would still be preaching in ten years, Crabbe corrected him and said his life would be over within "ten weeks".
He was absolutely right and, almost ten weeks to the day, George Crabbe died at home in Trowbridge after suffering a terrible cold that he could not recover from. His sons were with him at the end, his wife having predeceased him.
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| George Crabbe by Henry William Pickersgill, 1818-19 |
George Crabbe was a man of many talents. Poet, surgeon and friend to the stars of the Georgian literary and artistic world, he also had an uncanny knack for predicting the day of his own death!
By the age of seventy seven, the illustrious Crabbe was beginning to slow down physically if not mentally. His life had been a full one, rich with admirers and success and he had a keen enthusiasm for the world around him, whether natural or artistic. With two adult sons to carry on his name, he no doubt felt that his had been a life well-lived.
During the winter of 1832, Crabbe visited his son, George, who had become the curate at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire. Here he accepted George's invitation to preach and conducted two services for the parishioners, who counted themselves as lucky to see Crabbe speak. Crabbe, however, had been feeling increasingly unwell and when his son told him that he would still be preaching in ten years, Crabbe corrected him and said his life would be over within "ten weeks".
He was absolutely right and, almost ten weeks to the day, George Crabbe died at home in Trowbridge after suffering a terrible cold that he could not recover from. His sons were with him at the end, his wife having predeceased him.
Saturday, 20 September 2014
The Star Spangled Banner Flies Over Baltimore
As regular salon visitors will know, I share my tottering abode with a colonial gentleman and on occasion, his limited influence results in a story with an American flavour. Today is one of those days as I combine my gent's county of origin with one of my passions, music, to tell the tale of an important moment in publishing.
In 1814, amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, found himself so moved by events he had witnessed at the Battle of Fort McHenry two years earlier that he set pen to paper and poured out his feelings in the poem, Defence of Fort M'Henry. I have never been a poet and hold a certain regard for those who work in the medium, so I am hardly surprised that Key was pleased enough with his composition to pass it on to his brother-in-law, Judge Joseph H Nicholson.
Now, I have dear brothers-in-law of my own but I doubt that any of them would have made the connection that Nicholson did when he read the four stanza poem by Key. He noticed that the words fit perfectly to the tune of The Anacreontic Song, a work written by John Stafford Smith in the 1760s, a melody that had already known various lyrics and versions. So imposed was he by Key's work that Nicholson had anonymous broadsides of the poem printed and distributed in Baltimore on 17th September 1814.
However, it was three days later on 20th September that The Baltimore Patriot and The American printed the verses once more, noting that they should be sung to the tune of The Anacreontic Song. The poem became wildly popular and within days Thomas Carr in Baltimore published the words and music together under a title that would become legendary and, form humble beginnings, The Star Spangled Banner was born.
In 1814, amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, found himself so moved by events he had witnessed at the Battle of Fort McHenry two years earlier that he set pen to paper and poured out his feelings in the poem, Defence of Fort M'Henry. I have never been a poet and hold a certain regard for those who work in the medium, so I am hardly surprised that Key was pleased enough with his composition to pass it on to his brother-in-law, Judge Joseph H Nicholson.
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| One of two surviving copies of the 1812 broadside |
Now, I have dear brothers-in-law of my own but I doubt that any of them would have made the connection that Nicholson did when he read the four stanza poem by Key. He noticed that the words fit perfectly to the tune of The Anacreontic Song, a work written by John Stafford Smith in the 1760s, a melody that had already known various lyrics and versions. So imposed was he by Key's work that Nicholson had anonymous broadsides of the poem printed and distributed in Baltimore on 17th September 1814.
However, it was three days later on 20th September that The Baltimore Patriot and The American printed the verses once more, noting that they should be sung to the tune of The Anacreontic Song. The poem became wildly popular and within days Thomas Carr in Baltimore published the words and music together under a title that would become legendary and, form humble beginnings, The Star Spangled Banner was born.
Wednesday, 3 September 2014
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
There is nothing I like better than to wander abroad from my salon, taking in the sights and sounds of the world around me. From the bustle of our great cities to the rolling hills of the countryside, I like to take m inspiration from the most unusual paces and today's tale is of a poem that owes its own inspiration to the city of London.
William Wordsworth left London with his sister, Dorothy, in the early morning on 31st July 1802 on their way to travel to Calais. Wordsworth was struck by the simple beauty of the cityscape and later composed a sonnet entitled, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.
The sonnet is a love letter to London in its waking hours, blanketed by the morning sunlight and an all-enveloping silence. Here in the heart of the city he experiences a deep peace that touches his should and fires his inspiration, finding in this man made environment a perfection to rival nature itself.
For one so closely associated with poetry of nature, it is a surprise to read such rhapsodical lines addressed to the capital but reading the sonnet one can share in those early morning moments, the Georgian city yet to wake from its slumber.
William Wordsworth left London with his sister, Dorothy, in the early morning on 31st July 1802 on their way to travel to Calais. Wordsworth was struck by the simple beauty of the cityscape and later composed a sonnet entitled, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.
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| Westminster Bridge and Abbey by Daniel Turner, 1800 |
The sonnet is a love letter to London in its waking hours, blanketed by the morning sunlight and an all-enveloping silence. Here in the heart of the city he experiences a deep peace that touches his should and fires his inspiration, finding in this man made environment a perfection to rival nature itself.
For one so closely associated with poetry of nature, it is a surprise to read such rhapsodical lines addressed to the capital but reading the sonnet one can share in those early morning moments, the Georgian city yet to wake from its slumber.
Earth hath not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
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