184 The Poetry of Mary Robinsonthe challenges of running the “Poetical Department” for Stuart and
the regular demand to fill space in the paper when it was required.
“The Poet Perplext” first appeared in the Morning Post of 24 June- Southey was over a year into his position as Stuart’s principal
poetry contributor, which he called, perhaps a bit facetiously, his first
“laureateship.” When Southey left for Portugal in December of 1799,
Stuart hired Robinson to replace him. As chief poetic correspondent
or contributor, the poet so designated was responsible for amusing
the paper’s readership with a variety of short poems, which the writ-
ers did using various pseudonyms and forms. When she succeeded
Southey, Robinson produced during the final year of her life nearly
one- quarter of the total number of poems in her entire oeuvre, prov-
ing that, despite her periodic infirmity, her mind was fertile and vig-
orous and her sense of humor was intact.
Undertaking the poetical department of the paper, Southey and
Robinson were not the editors of a section of the newspaper so much
as they were the entertainers of its audience. The position required
improvisational wit and speedy and prolific composition—thus, in
“The Poet Perplext,” Southey comically exhorts his brain to work.
This poem, however, is more than a self- ref lexive study in writer’s
block; it is also a reminder that newspaper poetry of the 1790s served
a purpose much like that of the comics section in today’s newspapers.
These poems are meant to be consumable and literally disposable.
The demands of writing this poetry are all on the poet; there should
not be demands placed on the readers to read it. As any comic knows,
laughter is more difficult to achieve than other affective endeavors,
which is why newspaper poems often opt for the erotic, maudlin, or
patriotic. Southey regarded “The Poet Perplext” as one of the poems
“too good to perish with the newspapers in which they are printed”
(Robberds 1: 239), so he reprinted it in volume 2 of The Annual
Anthology with the signature “Byondo,” a comically self- effacing ana-
gram for “nobody.” Later, though, Southey was embarrassed by much
of this writing and gathered the “minor poems” together with the
self- conscious disclaimer that “Nos haec novimus esse nihil,” or “We
know all this is nothing” (Trott 69). He did not finally think enough
of “The Poet Perplext” to admit it to his canon. The composition of
ephemeral poetry was a major element of the position Southey and
Robinson each held at Stuart’s paper, even if the products of such
composition were not held in esteem by the poets themselves.
Scholars, including myself, who have written about Robinson’s
tenure with Stuart frequently refer to the position as “poetry edi-
tor.” No scholar working on Southey, however, has ever characterized
9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1849780230100251_06_ch04.indd 184 12/28/2010 11:08:53 AM12/28/2010 11:08:53 AM
10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel RobinsonCopyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket iTr
omso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-13