James Rafael Fitzgerald
Dr. C. Gonda
Self-reflexivity:
Awareness of writing in the verse of women poets in the specified period.
Many women poets of the period show an increasing concern for the nature of their
writing and its reception. A self-awareness of one’s own work is present and an
anxiety for its place amidst the widening world of Literature can be found. There are
many examples of women writing about the act of writing itself, and about the status
of Literature, and in this self-reflexive way their verse becomes complex and
engaging, allowing criticism not just of the object as it really is in itself, but of the
work as a concept and tradition. I have chosen four key poems by different female
writers which illustrate this, and propose to track a progressive form of criticism
throughout them. These texts are, in the order I will deal with them, From, The
Spleen. A Pindaric poem by Anne Finch, Upon her play being returned to her, stained
with Claret, by Mary Leapor, A receipt for writing a novel by Mary Alcock, and A
poem, on the supposition of an advertisement appearing in a morning paper, of the
publication of a volume of poems by a servant maid by Elizabeth Hands. I envisage
four three stages; there is at first a critical awareness of the self, and the desire to
express in words certain feelings, sympathies and opinions. There is secondly a
comparative criticism of others, not just of their work detached, but of their work in
relation to the poet’s own opinions and writing. Thirdly there develops a criticism of
the critic themselves, and thus do these poets achieve a lucid impression of their
attitudes towards their own work.
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James Rafael Fitzgerald
Dr. C. Gonda
Firstly then, Anne Finch writes in The spleen of the struggles a poet, or indeed an
artist of any sort, encounters in the desire to convey a feeling experienced, through
another medium in order to communicate and share this specified experience. The
spleen, in being associated as the seat of the emotions, is an apt title, but immediately
Finch disrobes herself of the veil of unconscious narrator, and exposes the frank
nakedness of her verse, “I feel my verse decay, and my cramped numbers fail” (3).
The self-reflexive here marks the first stage in critical awakening. The
acknowledgement of the self and the need to criticise it. Finch’s frustration with her
writing is expressed openly “My lines decried, and my employment thought / An
useless folly, or presumptuous fault” (6-7), therefore not only deeming her work of
low esteem, but also its object. She moves on to explain why she “delights to trace
unusual things” (10), rather than seek the more common affectings of traditional
muses, she is critically justifying her writing at the same time she is analysing its
weakness. Her conclusion, “Do but the spleen obey, and worship at thy shrine” (54)
would suggest that in order to stay away from a “perverted text” (47) one must be
self-aware in writing and understand the need to pursue personal desire rather than
social norm.
Mary Leapor extends a similarly critical hand to her own work, using the metaphor of
a child for her play which she has had returned. The metaphor allows for an
interestingly symbolic criticism to begin, inviting the play, “Welcome dear wanderer,
once more / Thrice welcome to thy native cell” (1-2). However in re-encountering the
play, “Thy fair complexion’s greatly changed” (7), and Leapor highlights how the
critical attitude changes depending upon time and situation. From either her own
distancing from the text and subsequent re-reading, or from the criticism of others or
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James Rafael Fitzgerald
Dr. C. Gonda
even alteration, her initial opinions of her writing have changed. The child is now
“graceless (10), and thus stained she scolds it and is much dismayed. Her rather
poignant conclusion is that her writing is inferior and not worthy to be looked upon by
others and thus she condemns both herself and her ‘child’:
“But now I’ll keep you here secure:
No more you view the smoky sky;
The Court was never made, I’m sure,
For idiots like thee and I.” (21-24)
Whilst Finch and Leapor concern themselves with their own writing, Alcock concerns
herself with the writings of other women, and scathingly mocks the novel form for its
typically unlikely and overly exciting, indulgent plots. In A receipt for writing a novel
she opens:
“Would you a favourite novel make,
Try hard your reader’s heart to break,
For who is pleased if not tormented?
(Novels for that were first invented.) (1-4)
The shifts in tone between the rhetorical question and the line in parenthesis is highly
amusing and the sense she that she is mocking the novel is established. Here the poet
deals with a whole genre, and not simply a single text. In doing this she adopts a tone
of sincerity which contrasts the amusing and often outrageous suggestions for the
subject matter that she proposes, such as:
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James Rafael Fitzgerald
Dr. C. Gonda
“But fainting-fits you need not measure,
The fair ones have them at their pleasure;
Of sighs and groans take no account,
But throw them in to vast amount” (18-21)
It is this contrast wherein we find the criticism. Alcock is much more coy about her
critical message than Leapor and Finch, allowing and inviting us to in turn make our
own critical judgements upon her writing. Her argument however becomes more
vehement and explicit and in drawing attention to the artificiality of the written word
she damages those that:
“…throw in—no matter what,
However foreign to the plot;
So it but serves to swell the book,” (61-62)
It would be easy to assume Alcock is simply lambasting a genre with which she feels
is not ‘proper’ literature, but she extends this further to suggest it is the female
novelist, so full of melodrama and repetitious derivativeness, that the general quality
of writing has plummeted:
“These stores supply the female pen,
Which writes them o’er and o’er again,
And readers likewise may be found
To circulate them round and round” (69-72)
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James Rafael Fitzgerald
Dr. C. Gonda
Whilst Alcock offers a more refined, almost satirical criticism through self-conscious
writing, Elizabeth Hands in her, A poem, on the supposition of an advertisement
appearing in a morning paper, of the publication of a volume of poems by a servant
maid, would criticise those who themselves criticise others unduly. Hands presents an
unflattering picture of a tea party of sorts at which the ladies attending mock and
debase the writing of a maid who has come to the attention of the local paper. Mrs.
Consequence, with her comedic name, titters “‘They’re produced by the pen of a poor
servant-maid.’ / ‘A Servant write verses!’ says Madam Du Bloom’” (10). The
assertion made by Mrs. Consequence and Madam Du Bloom is that a woman of lower
class or position would not be able to write poetry of a quality that would be viewed
equal to that of their own. Indeed, they mock and dispute, “Pray what is the subject—
a mop or broom?” (11) and propose she has written an “Ode on a dishclout” (14).
Hands continues to make the reader aware not only of the criticism and reception of a
text in a wider context, but of her own work in writing this poem. It is not until line 27
that the real sticking point of her mockery is found in Mrs. Noworthy’s comment
“‘What ideas can such low-bred creatures conceive?’” (27). The notion of class and
Literature, as oppose to literature, is the defining criticism these women have with the
maid’s work. It is blaringly obvious however, to Hands’ reader that none of these
women have actually engaged with the poems and let them speak of their own merit,
placing aside author and context for a Cambridge style practical criticism. Such
hollow criticism, for it is hollow if it has no basis in the object that it is criticising,
appears folly under Hand’s critical microscope.
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James Rafael Fitzgerald
Dr. C. Gonda
The self-awareness of the poets in the poems they are writing, creates a stimulating
edge to which these texts are associated. Not only do they stand alone as works
themselves, they show a progressive criticism and acknowledgement of a growing
body of women writers of an increasingly varied social background. The movement in
three parts of self-criticism, that of others, and that of the theory of criticism itself
shows a heightened literary consciousness, and in writing self-reflexive poems, these
women prove worthy adversaries to the writers and texts which they engage with.
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