Gender Rhetoric to Revise a Reputation
The Romantic period proved to be a difficult time for women to establish themselves as
poets in what Alan Richardson describes as “a predominantly male tradition” (13). However,
recent revaluations of works by women writers during this period spotlight the rare women who
challenged this masculine sphere, and among these most notable female writers, Mary Darby
Robinson stands out. Following a marriage in 1774 at the age of fifteen to a philandering bastard,
Robinson gave birth to a daughter, Maria Elizabeth, and moved into debtor’s prison with her
family for over one year. Fifteen months later her husband negotiated a release, and Robinson
began acting in the theatre, hoping to support her family. In 1779, after four years on the stage and
many unseemly proposals, Robinson’s role as Perdita in A Winter’s Tale gained the recognition of
the seventeen-year-old Prince of Wales (later King George IV). According to Robinson’s
Memoirs (Perdita: The Memoirs of Mary Robinson), the Prince’s aggressive pursuit of Robinson
as his mistress finally succeeded several months later and ended some time in 1781 (120). From
this, the most popular media representation of Robinson developed; in Anne Mellor’s account of
“The Actress as Whore,” the press depicts the Prince as “an overprotected, naïve, impressionable,
innocent, and entirely sincere young man” who falls into the hands of “a scheming, manipulative
older woman . . . out for fame, fortune, and power” (272). Shortly thereafter, Robinson entered
into a relationship with Banastre Tarleton (later Colonel Banastre Tarleton) which lasted almost
sixteen years. Over the course of these two highly publicized romances, Robinson raised her
daughter while supporting “them both with her 500 pound annuity from the Prince and the income
from her substantial publication of poetry, novels, plays, and political tracts” (Mellor 272).
Simultaneously, Robinson’s health deteriorated, eventually resulting in her invalid state; severe
headaches, fevers, partial paralysis, and rheumatism restricted Robinson’s literary endeavors.
While in bed, however, she began her Memoirs, and days before her death, Robinson rendered the
papers to her daughter “with an injunction that the narrative should be made public” (Robinson
150). Following years of enigmatic symptoms and travels searching for remedies, Robinson
succumbed on December 26, 1800. According to her Memoirs, which were completed by her
daughter, an autopsy revealed that “the immediate cause of her death appears to have been a
dropsy in the chest; but the sufferings which she endured previous to her decease, were probably
occasioned by six large gallstones, found in the gallbladder” (152). A sensational topic,
Robinson’s personal life received considerable interest. In contrast, Robin Miskolcze points out
that Robinson’s poetry “has remained relatively unexamined,” although popular in her time (206).
Ironically, much of Robinson’s poetry provides insight into her personal life; through her poetry,
Robinson sought to establish her poetic genius and later, revise her public reputation. In this vein,
Robinson’s poem “Poor Marguerite” presents an autobiographical representation designed to
evoke the pathos of her readers. Written during the last year of her life, this poem depicts
Robinson’s life regarding her sensitivity, illness, lost love, and artistic genius.
Marguerite, the “NUT-BROWN GIRL” with her “large and sunken eye,” resembles
Robinson in both appearance and sensitivity (2). In her Memoirs, Robinson dwells in some detail
upon her complexion in contrast to her brothers. Where her brothers appear fair-skinned, she
laments her “swarthy” appearance and eyes which “were singularly large in proportion to my face”
(21). Aside from her physical attributes, Marguerite shares Robinson’s sensitivity to her
surroundings; the harsh, unfriendly climate of the poem symbolizes Robinson’s societal
environment. Marguerite experiences “chilling dews . . . many a day” while she “had, all alone,
been doom’d to stray” (14-6). The elements become more aggressive with the “pelting storm”
(18) that evolves through her sojourn into a “wintry blast” (31). Robinson uses the cold and storm
to reflect the disposition and injurious comments of others toward her; she felt abandoned by her
friends and exploited by the media. Through her depiction of isolation, Robinson seeks to establish
credibility with her readers as the victim in her account; this attempts to gain pathos from society.
She refutes the treatment of herself as both a woman in society and as a poetess. She sought the
attention for her writing but was discounted because of her gender; however, she gained the
scandalous attention in society simply because her behavior was considered inappropriate for a
woman. Both instances result in levels of attention because of her gender; unfortunately, the
desired attention is the reverse of the reality. Not until later did she fully manipulate her notoriety
to garner attention for her poetic skill. In her Memoirs, she describes what she considers to be a
public attack following her affair with the Prince: “The daily prints now indulged the malice of my
enemies by the most scandalous paragraphs . . . I found it was now too late to stop the hourly
augmenting torrent of abuse that was poured upon me from all quarters” (113). Not surprisingly,
her solitude increased in conjunction with her notoriety; the attention she gained fueled the
tabloids, and many of her previous friends dissociated themselves to preserve their own
reputations. Rather than comment upon her own adulterous behavior, Robinson’s Memoirs relate
methods through which people denounced her:
Every engine of female malice was set in motion to destroy my repose,
and every petty calumny was repeated with tenfold embellishments. Tales
of the most infamous and glaring falsehood were invented, and I was
again assailed by pamphlets, by paragraphs, and caricatures, and all the
artillery of slander, . . . .(117)
The injuries to Robinson’s reputation manifest as physical wounds on Marguerite; both women
continue to be faultless victims. Robinson depicts herself in a friendless state; no person or place
exists to which she may turn for shelter. Poetry became Robinson’s chosen outlet for voicing her
frustration. Jacqueline Labbe denotes that “Robinson herself feels the sting of social criticism and
lashes back at the women she sees as willingly giving her up to her troubles because of her
unconventional relationships” (70). She inserts aspects of herself in her love poems surrounded by
desperate circumstances and relies on the reader’s sense of gallantry to recognize her goodness.
Like the orators of the past, she seeks to identify with her audience, gain a sense of credibility and
then build on their sympathies; to do this, she projects an impoverished woman vulnerable to
circumstances beyond her control.
Robinson uses Marguerite to relate a sense of victimization; she becomes a Christ figure
who suffers unjustly. Marguerite’s figurative crucifixion begins as “Her garments were by briars
torn, / And on them hung full many a thorn; / A thistle crown, she mutt’ring twin’d,” and her open,
bleeding wounds need bathing (21-3). Her pitiful state gains sympathy only from a watchdog, but
Robinson again uses this to draw on the pathos of the reader. This dog attacks all others, “But she
[Marguerite], so kind and gentle seem’d, / Such sorrow in her dark eyes beam’d,” that this poor,
dumb animal recognizes her inherent virtue where others lack such insight. Both Robinson and
Marguerite fail to receive the sympathy and compassion their “kind and gentle” personages
deserve from mankind, but they continue to brave the elements. Robinson carefully portrays
herself as the victim to elicit pathos from her readers, yet her independent spirit continues through
her poetry. As she has fought for recognition within a field of male contemporaries, she continues
to fight through her poetry. Unlike the women of her time, she refuses to remain a voiceless
woman. She has an outlet through which to fight, however subversively, and makes use of it.
Marguerite struggles onward, still alone and searching for her lost love. As she traverses
the various settings, she rises above the unfriendly elements. Still suffering from her wounds,
Marguerite appears superhuman in her ability to endure such hardships and continue:
And wild was her groan,
When she climb’d, aloneThe rough rock’s side
While the foaming tide,
Dash’d rudely against the sandy shore,
And the lightning flash’d mid the thunder’s roar. (65-70)
Marguerite climbs alone above the turbulence as if in defiance and emits a groan alluding to the
exertion required to maneuver in such surroundings. Nature represented an important theme
during Robinson’s time; it offered health and tranquility as it inspires the poet from within. The
male contemporaries honed in on the beauty; yet, much like the rest of Robinson’s life, she finds
herself in a contradictory position. Instead of a nature that rejuvenates and strengthens its
inhabitants, this environment repels rather than invites. This setting offers additional significance
in Robinson’s personal life relating to a painting of her by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Robinson’s
notoriety encouraged numerous paintings and sketches, many of which reflected poorly on
Robinson. Mellor points to a painting of Reynolds’s from 1784 which she considers the “most
sympathetic portrait of Mrs. Robinson” (275). This painting achieves what Robinson hopes to
portray through her poems, particularly “Poor Marguerite.” The setting and mood appealed to the
public, and she copied this same construction for her poem. Based on this painting, Mellor reflects
that “Mary Robinson is the abandoned woman, filled with melancholy, gazing with sorrow upon a
tempestuous sea and dark, stormy sky, at a horizon where the sun sinks . . . confined upon a rock,
waiting for a lover who never comes” (275). Robinson recreates the painting’s imagery in her
poem, “Poor Marguerite,” but she modifies the natural elements to reflect the harsher climate of
her life. She remains the woman with a sympathetic appeal to her readers; yet, she refuses to fall
and fail under society’s expectations. The personification of the tide offers a glimpse of
Robinson’s perspective; she suggests that the surroundings, her society, act “rudely” towards the
impoverished. Her audience would have been familiar with the popularized tales of her life, and
Labbe suggests Robinson’s poems benefit from the “pathos enhanced by Robinson’s strategic
self-placement as a bereaved woman made all the more attractive by her bereavement” (70).
Robinson’s personal life remained noteworthy, and she played up this role to her advantage. She
attains a voice through her poetry and markets it through her notoriety. As an infamous celebrity,
her poetry sold well, and she excelled at “marketing her poetry through the spectacle of herself as
a woman in need” (Labbe 68).
“Poor Marguerite” brings in illness as another representation of Robinson’s life.
Marguerite seeks treatment as she looks for “balsam sweet, to heal the wounds” (10) and describes
herself in her travels as “doom’d to stray” while she continues searching for help (16). Robinson
unsuccessfully sought remedies by traveling to various locales while suffering from headaches,
fevers, and delirium, and through her poem, she depicts the exhaustion that developed from her
various travels in search of relief. However, near the end of the poem, Marguerite elects to stop
and remain in her “lone retreat” (121). Similarly, Robinson wrote this poem during the year
following her confinement to her house and ultimately, her bed. Seeking distraction, she reflected
on her life and began writing her memoirs and some poems for Richard Phillips‘s Monthly
Magazine, including “Poor Marguerite.”
Unfortunately, her distraction through poetry remained inconstant due to debilitating
headaches and fevers. Her Memoirs recount numerous instances in which Robinson feels “ . . . a
prisoner in her own house, she was deprived of every solace but that which could be obtained by
the activity of her mind, which at length sunk under excessive exertion and inquietude” (144).
Like the previously mentioned painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, glimpses of Robinson’s life
surfaced in other mediums as well, and in this case, the publicity of her poor health becomes the
subject of the painter Thomas Lawrence. Mellor indicates one portrait in particular in which
Lawrence “gave her a bandage-like headdress that suggests a woman with a wounded mind” (275).
Robinson manifested her mental exhaustion and restlessness through Marguerite’s maladies.
Similar to the way Robinson’s Memoirs describe her “toilsome labours of the brain,- nights of
sleepless anxiety were succeeded by days of vexation and dread,” Marguerite suffers with bouts of
fitful sleep (145). In the first stanza, Robinson describes Marguerite “While she lay wrapp’d in
feverish dreams; / While on the wither’d hedge-row’s side, / By turns she slept, by turns she cried,”
(6-8). Like Robinson, Marguerite cannot find relief through sleep. Neither woman gains any
recuperative benefits through sleep, and as a result, both deteriorate. In the poem, the speaker
draws attention to the dilemma by asking the question “And why did she with sun-burnt breast, /
So wander, and so scorn to rest?” (79-80). At first, the wording seems to present the possibility
that Marguerite’s condition reflects one of her own choosing, but within the same stanza,
Robinson clarifies the situation and arouses sympathy for Marguerite. The word selection also
remains particularly important as the “sun-burnt breast” reminds the reader of her femininity, and
the body part immediately denotes a motherly association. She represents the sympathetic mother
who has been injured. Robinson’s next question elucidates Marguerite’s victimized state: “What
stole the hour of slumber sweet- / From the scorch’d brain of Marguerite?” (87-88). An unknown
thief purloins her hope for tranquility. Characteristic of Robinson, she emphasizes the
victimization of Marguerite to ensure that her readers cannot fault Marguerite for what has
befallen her- unlike the public perception of the poet Marguerite embodies. However, once again,
Robinson selects the brain to highlight; she remains injured yet retains her intelligence. She has a
brain and refuses to discard her mental capabilities. Only in death will she become the ultimate
victim. Highly aware of the public’s view of her, Robinson wrote that she had “been unceasingly
marked by their persecutions, and shall at length become their victim” (300). By asserting herself
into her poetic characters, Robinson hoped to gain some sense of vindication for what she
considered her own mistreatment.
The combination of her scandalous reputation, financial straits, and deteriorating health
encouraged Robinson’s retreat from society. Her isolation manifests itself in “Poor Marguerite” as
a type of exile; this particular motif dominates much of her poetry. She considered her earlier life
as an involuntary exile resulting from her adulterous relationship, and her later years became a
self-imposed exile as her health required her to withdraw from the public venue. As Miskolcze
suggests, “The world Robinson revealed in her writing was one marked by alienation and exile,”
and the misery and loneliness of Robinson’s own life speak to her readers on her behalf and
illustrate her isolation (208). Her retreat does not necessarily signify defeat. She writes so that “the
audience may feel lonely and alienated by means of the self-reflexive tales” (Miskolcze 209).
Through her poetry, she shares her grief concerning her circumstances and possibly imagines her
readers “as potential companions” alleviating her isolation by commiserating with her through her
poetry (Miskolcze 211).
In “Poor Marguerite,” Robinson portrays exile through both Marguerite and the lover she
awaits. The voluntary exile of Marguerite results from her quest to find her lost love, Henry, who
eventually appears and reveals his forced exile:
Here did the exil’d Henry stray,
Forc’d from his native land, away;
Here, here upon a foreign shore,
His parents, lost, awhile deplore;
Here find, that pity’s holy tear
Could not an alien wand’rer chear;
...........................
The rabble crew, whose impious hands
Tore asunder nature’s bands!- (123-8, 131-2)
The previous passage affords three interpretations, and each one remains representative of
Robinson’s life. The more literal interpretations pertain to the two most prominent of Robinson’s
lovers, the Prince and Tarleton; the subjective interpretation focuses on Robinson’s poetic genius.
Unfortunately for Robinson‘s characters, in any of the interpretations, “whether one is forcibly
exiled or self-exiled, the result is inescapable grief and misery” (Miskolcze 211).
The literal interpretation of lost love may be read with respect to either of Robinson’s
lovers. According to Cross, these relationships determined how the world perceived Robinson,
and she was “defined by her failed romantic exploits” (581). The details Robinson uses in “Poor
Marguerite” lend themselves to association with the Prince, Tarleton, or both. For example,
Marguerite searches to reunite with her lost love, and she finds him on the “foreign shore” she
travels. This “foreign shore” represents Robinson’s isolated existence despite the world around
her; Marguerite clarifies that Henry exists here only because he strayed. Imagining Henry as the
Prince, the idea becomes a separation of the two spheres in which they live. Robinson’s Memoirs
acknowledge that she “lamented the distance which destiny had placed between us: how would my
soul have idolized such a husband!” (112). The distance between social standing presents distance
greater than any physical barrier, and realistically, Robinson could not actually expect matrimony
because her first marriage remained legal. However, the “bands” suggest a commitment, if not
actual matrimony, and she anticipated the Prince’s public recognition of their relationship which
would have provided her with some level of respectability. Her Memoirs confirm that she “looked
forward to . . . the public avowal of our mutual attachment” (112). In actuality, however, the
Prince broke off the relationship, and Robinson blamed others, “the rabble crew,” for tearing apart
their relationship. Like Marguerite, Robinson sought to reunite with her lover, but “ . . . to the dark
abyss he’s gone-” (133).
Similar to the scene with the Prince, Robinson would not have expected marriage “bands”
from Tarleton; he also strays into her domain. Her “foreign shore” no longer qualifies as marital
material, especially for a man with any political or military aspirations. Regarding the “bands,”
however, the fifteen year relationship with Tarleton suggests some level of commitment toward
Robinson, but Tarleton chose to end the relationship. As before, she pursued him in an
unsuccessful attempt to reunite.
The similarities continue regarding “his parents” who “deplore” the situation because both
men eventually terminated the romantic relationship with Robinson at their family’s insistence. In
the Prince’s case, George IV applied pressure to end the relationship and paid Robinson money in
exchange for the letters his son had written to her. The Prince continued to visit her for some
years, but the relationship lacked any romantic connotation. Unlike the Prince, Tarleton spent
many years with Robinson. Eventually, however, his family intervened, and “he left her at his
mother’s insistance [sic] in 1798” and married someone else shortly afterwards (Mellor 272).
Through her poem, Robinson represents the dramatic heroine who suffers heroically and is
finally able to share her tale of woe. Following this melancholy story of feminine sensibility, the
poet hopes her readers accept this self-display and understand the poet’s sympathetic distress. Her
ply at pathos focuses on displaying her credibility by offering details of her personal narrative
while simultaneously seeking the sympathies of the reader. The “sincerely loving but cruelly
rejected woman” gains vindication through the readers’ outrage at her plight. (Mellor 299).
Robinson seeks to attain the poetic ability to “transform the material conditions of society through
her poetic inventions” (Ross 32).
In a more subjective interpretation, Henry reflects something larger than any one person in
Robinson’s life; he becomes symbolic of her poetic genius. Marguerite’s search for something she
has lost suggests a missing part of herself. On the “foreign shore,” she encounters her disappearing
literary gift. Her illness further alienates her from this poetic genius, and this aspect of her person
becomes “tore asunder.” In addition, Robinson represents the parental figure through this
interpretation, and she experiences the loss as that of a mother losing her child.
Through the course of the poem‘s text, the audience realizes that Henry exists as a ghost or
memory, but in either instance, he died prior to his encounter with Marguerite. After gaining this
information, Marguerite describes watching “His white shroud floating in the gale” (148).
Robinson’s choice of words to relay his departure belie a sorrowful separation, almost like that of
star-crossed lovers. Henry never chooses to leave Marguerite; “She saw him o’er the billows go”
(155). The water takes him away from Marguerite. She does not want him to go, and in this
representation, he remains powerless to alter his course. In each of the previous analyses of Henry,
Robinson illustrates how she agonizes following a relationship that ends due to menacing forces
that overwhelm her circumstances and further her position as a silent sufferer.
One final element of the poem that develops through the course of Marguerite’s travels
manifests as song. The song varies from stanza to stanza as Marguerite becomes more distraught.
Building on the third interpretation of Henry as poetic genius, Robinson uses Marguerite’s song to
illustrate artistic creation. Sonia Hofkosh explains that creating a literary work begins by
“originating within the poet, from his ‘deepest self,’” and this type of “work confirms the poets’
identity” (93). The artistic element diminishes from Robinson’s life, and she expresses her grief
through Marguerite’s song. Toward the beginning of the poem, Marguerite spends time “Singing
the lonely hours away” (40). Her song comforts and soothes her at this time, and at the onset of her
travels she “sung her Song” (58). Shortly afterwards, the “weary woe” (60) encroaches, to which
Marguerite “ . . . inly humm’d her frantic Song” (61). The surroundings have become harsher,
and her “Song” reflects the harried tone:
And then, with loud fantastic tone
She sang her wild strain, sad - alone.
And if a stranger wander’d near
Or paus’d the frantic Song to hear,
The burthen she would soft repeat, (73-7)
The emotional appeal and desperation heighten the sense that Marguerite’s circumstances have
worsened, and like Coleridge’s Mariner, the allusion suggests that Marguerite feels compelled to
sing although the act has become exhaustive. Her artistic genius deteriorates further as “ . . . she
chaunts her strain” (93). Reuniting with Henry refreshes her and reinvigorates her “Song” which
“wild she sung” until her realization of his death. Following Marguerite’s awareness of Henry’s
death, she fails to sing; her only sound occurs as “She shriek’d aloud . . .” (157). The next image of
Marguerite reveals that of a “lifeless form” (164). Respective to Robinson’s life, the loss of her
ability to compose literature marked the final months of her life. Without access to this part of her
person, Robinson sank further into despair. Ashley Cross imagines Marguerite’s “body without
creative Genius, woman without her muse: this final image suggests the extreme dispossession of
the female poet, something Robinson, an invalid at the end of her life, may herself have feared”
(600). The separation of the artist from the Genius offers only tragedy, and Robinson fought
diligently through her work to gain recognition for female poetic Genius and “assert women’s
poetic authority” (Cross 581).
Characteristic of Robinson’s Memoirs, the poem “Poor Marguerite” strikes a melancholy
tone while addressing the character’s situation. Cross notes that “Robinson continually
foregrounds the tension between the pathos of the characters’ stories and the failure of society to
respond” (599). Robinson followed “a conscious and calculated process of self-commodification”
that appealed to her reader by focusing on the plight of the innocent (Mellor 302). She
intentionally constructed texts to highlight her gentle suffering in order to reshape the public’s
opinion in her favor. Her Memoirs and poems were “designed to promote a re-evaluation of her
character and an appreciative assessment of her acting and writing career” (Setzer 501). Through
this, however, she became a voice for numerous women. Although writing to vent her own
frustrations, Robinson wrote from a position that recognized women as individuals and worked to
develop their existence beyond marginalized characters.
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