Corvey 'Adopt-an-Author'
Anna Brownell Jameson |
The Corvey Project
at Sheffield Hallam University |
Synopsis of The Loves of the Poets
Henry Colburn published Anna Jameson’s second book,
The Loves of the Poets, in 1829. In contrast to The Diary of the
Ennuyee, The Loves of the Poets comprises a series of biographical
sketches of a number of very different poets and the women who inspired
them. Jameson begins her work with a quotation from Mme de Stael, the
creator of Corrine, the work Jameson imitated in The Diary of the
Ennuyee. In her address to the Reader she refers to her research
as ‘sketches’ and claims that she wants little personal praise. Jameson also
asserts that she aims to show the influence that the beauty and virtue of
women has on men’s writing.
Many readers felt that Jameson had
deceived them by publishing The Diary of the Ennuyee anonymously and
pretending that the heroine had been heartbroken and fragile, and died as a
result. So in the introduction to The Loves of the Poets she defends
the publication of The Diary of the Ennuyee, claiming that she never
wanted it to be published and was ‘betrayed into authorship’; and that the
publisher chose the name of the book and was not aware that Anna Jameson was
the author.
The Loves of the Poets
consists of two volumes. In the first volume the author focuses on amatory
poetry, the loves of the troubadours, the classical poets, Spenser and
Shakespeare. The second volume focuses on conjugal poetry, looking at Donne,
Pope and his love Martha Blount, and Swift and his lovers Stella and
Vanessa; and then goes on to focus on the heroines of modern poetry.
In The Loves of the Poets
Jameson states that she believes that poetry is significant because poetry
is truth and that ‘Truth is the golden chain which links the terrestrial
with the celestial’ (Jameson, 1829:15). She also asserts that no woman has
ever been truly and lastingly defined in poetry without it being in the
spirit of truth and of love. Jameson reveals, for example through her use of
footnotes, a scholarly approach. However, the very personal attitudes she
adopts towards the poets shows that at this stage she has not attained the
professional stance that she later adopts as a writer. The Loves of the
Poets was significant because it was the first of several biographical
works that Jameson would write, all of which largely focused on the
depiction of female characterisation in the work of male artists. |