The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

180 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

poetry, I cannot imagine Robinson writing these poems without hav-

ing had the examples of Southey and Wordsworth before her. In this

way, the Tabitha Bramble of the Lyrical Tales parallels the familiar

course of political disillusionment that we see in Wordsworth and

Coleridge—that is, the turn away from overtly political poetry toward

more general humanitarian and social concerns. The later Tabitha

may be an entirely new character that Robinson reinvents under the

inf luence of Lyrical Ballads. In this way, the second Tabitha Bramble

seems quite a distance, not just in years but in subject matter and

tone, from her predecessor and the scathing satire of the first batch.

But those narrative poems Robinson attributes to the second

Tabitha Bramble have a peculiarly bawdy spirit that one is hard- pressed

to find in either Southey’s or Wordsworth’s narrative poems of this

time. Tabitha Bramble is without a doubt Robinson’s randiest avatar;

many of these poetic tales revolve around erotic themes of decep-

tion, jealousy, and promiscuity. The earliest of these poems, “The

Mistletoe. A Christmas Tale,” which was reprinted as a one- sheet

print with an illustration, Robinson signed “Laura Maria,” although

this poem clearly marks a new direction that the poet would quickly

assign to Tabitha Bramble: posing as a jaded spinster, Robinson uses

the erotic elements of these poems to direct criticism at vain deceitful

young women. For instance, in “The Mistletoe,” Mistress Homespun

uses the holiday tradition of kissing beneath the mistletoe to manipu-

late both her jealous older husband and her would- be seducer for the

ultimate purpose of humiliating her own rival for the younger man’s

attention. Tabitha takes it for granted that men are always game for

erotic assignation and deception, but she holds women to a higher

standard while also exulting in narratives of their frailty and culpabil-

ity, usually with a pat moral attached to the end. In “The Tell Tale;

or, Deborah’s Parrot,” Tabitha describes the sexually repressed and

shrewish Miss Debby, who “Resolv’d a spinster pure to be” (2: 53; 5);

Robinson’s revision for Lyrical Tales significantly changes “Resolv’d”

to “Was doom’d” to account perhaps for the woman’s malice and

adds that she “A Spinster’s life had long detested, / But ‘twas her

quiet destiny, / Never to be molested!” (2: 465). Debby, envious of

the “soft delights her breast ne’er felt,” observes the promiscuity of

her neighbors and delights in exposing the guilty wives:

Yet she had watchful ears and eyes

For ev’ry gamesome neighbor;

And never did she cease to labour

A tripping female to surprise. (6–10)

9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1809780230100251_06_ch04.indd 180 12/28/2010 11:08:52 AM12/28/2010 11:08:52 AM

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