186 The Poetry of Mary Robinsonexample, makes the important suggestion that “poetry editor” was not
an “exclusive job” and that “it is probably more accurate to think of
all three writers [Robinson, Coleridge, Southey] contributing in over-
lapping ways” (65). The job title matters little to Hawley’s argument
because she gets the job description right. But we ought to be cautious
of building arguments about Robinson’s career on the assumption
that the position was similar to a section editor for literary periodi-
cals today. For example, in a recent article, one critic writes, “Unlike
the little- known Wordsworth, Robinson (like Southey) already had
established a reputation as an important poet and (in her editorial role
at the Morning Post) a judge of poetry” (Wiley 224). Such a remark,
which is not germane to the writer’s argument, nonetheless takes for
granted that such a position was something other than what it really
was—an incestuous network of cohorts—as if Robinson were receiv-
ing blind submissions for review, accepting or rejecting poems accord-
ing to their merits. Clearly this was not the case.
The problem in understanding the nature of this work goes back
to the ludic quality of the newspaper poetry that all three poets con-
tributed, and how difficult it is to appreciate these texts today as
poems in their own right. Coleridge’s “Ode. To Georgiana, Duchess
of Devonshire” (24 December 1799) or Wordsworth’s “The Farmer
of Tilsbury Vale” (31 July 1800), both of which appeared during
Robinson’s stint with the Post, are not what we would call their most
distinguished literary productions. But if we can think of these poems
as appearing in a kind of ludic textual heterotopia, as I have suggested
we do for the Della Crusca network, the poems will take on a fresh
sheen (if not the patina of high culture). For example, other minor
poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth have connections to Robinson,
suggesting a playful network of exchange and public literary corre-
spondence that reveals a textual sociability among the three poets. In
October, while Robinson was nearing the end of her life but still con-
tributing two to three poems a week, Coleridge’s “The Voice from the
Side of Etna; or, The Mad Monk” and Wordsworth’s “The Solitude
of Binnorie, or the Seven Daughters of Lord Archibald Campbell”
appeared in the paper on successive days (13, 14 October 1800). The
former contains an oblique nod to Robinson’s 1794 “Anselmo, the
Hermit of the Alps” while making fun of Ann Radcliffe (“Ratcliff”);
the latter shows Wordsworth employing Robinson’s nonce form from
her poem “The Haunted Beach,” which appeared in the Morning
Post earlier that year. Similarly, when he learned of Robinson’s latest
illness, Coleridge repackaged an uncharacteristically erotic lyric by
Wordsworth as “Alcæus to Sappho” and sent it to Stuart as a tribute9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1869780230100251_06_ch04.indd 186 12/28/2010 11:08:53 AM12/28/2010 11:08:53 AM
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