The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Stuart’s Laureates II 199

Coleridge’s remark that Robinson “overloads every thing” certainly

refers to her formal, technical extravagance, an undeniable lyrical

ebu l l ience t h at R obi n s on ex h ibit s f rom her juven i le ver s e to t he p o et r y

she wrote in the final year of her life. As Coleridge remarks, “The

Poor Singing Dame” succeeds on two grounds—“meter and matter.”

Furthermore, his comments on “The Haunted Beach,” a poem at

least partly inspired by “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,” dem-

onstrate his view that achievement in the one may mitigate fault in the

other. According to Coleridge, this poem “wants Tale— & Interest,”

by which he means that the poem’s “matter” or substance is lacking.

In addition to appreciating its “fascinating Metre,” however, he finds

that its “Images are new & very distinct” and regrets that “it should

seem so bad—for it is really good.” Despite these f laws, it is the meter

that redeems the poem, according to Coleridge: it may not be a suc-

cessful tale because it does not relate an interesting story, “but the

Metre—ay! that Woman has an Ear” (Letters 1: 576). This kind of

subordination of narrative to the style and subjectivity of the lyric is

of the utmost importance to the study of Romanticism, particularly

at the end of the eighteenth century. Before we examine what exactly

Coleridge liked about these three poems, and how his appreciation

reveals not only certain affinities between Robinson and himself but

also the significance of Robinson’s innovations, we need to consider

what “meter” meant for Coleridge and, subsequently, the relationship

between Romantic narrative poetry and Robinson’s invention of her

own “fascinating” meters, or poetic forms.

My own fascination with Robinson’s poetry has always been driven

by the fact that Coleridge was fascinated by it, and by the astonishing

fact that he thought enough of her to share with her an early ver-

sion of his masterpiece, the famous poem “Kubla Khan.” Even more

remarkable, she wrote a poetic response to “Kubla Khan,” “Mrs.

Robinson to the Poet Coleridge” just a few months before her death

in 1800. This poem appeared in print in 1801, a decade and a half

before the publication of “Kubla Khan” in 1816. It matters to me

that Coleridge shared this poem with Robinson before (as far as we

k now) he shared it with Southey, Lamb, or at last Byron, who encour-

aged him ultimately to publish it. Her poem to Coleridge reveals,

moreover, that Robinson understood aspects of “Kubla Khan” that

no one else, at least in print, would begin to understand until John

Livingston Lowes’s The Road to Xanadu in 1927. This chapter, and

this book, will close then with a reading of Robinson’s response to

“Kubla Khan,” showing that Robinson was the first to understand

and appreciate “Kubla Khan” as a poem about the poetic imagination.

9780230100251_07_ch05.indd 1999780230100251_07_ch05.indd 199 12/28/2010 11:09:01 AM12/28/2010 11:09:01 AM

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