The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Stuart’s Laureates II 223

attempted by Southey in his poem “The Widow,” which, incidentally,

the Anti- Jacobin mercilessly parodied and critiqued. Coleridge could

not possibly be referring to himself (or to Wordsworth) as Alcæus,

because the “Alcæus to Sappho” poem would not appear in print for

more than a month, as I discuss in the following. The strongest point

of connection between the two is poetic, not erotic: Coleridge is pro-

moting Robinson for the invention of the “Haunted Beach” stanza by

reminding readers of the Post that the original Sappho, not Robinson

but like Robinson, invented a stanza form, so his point is that the

innovation of a nonce form—“the invention of a metre”—becomes

associated with the originating poets and grants them poetic lon-

gevity and legitimacy. The gesture is one of literary sociability, even

respect for a fellow poet. Robinson would have earned the gesture,

given her active participation in the professional and textual network

around the creation and innovation of Romantic narrative form.

Extatic Measures and Della

Cruscan Ghosts

The friendship between Robinson and Coleridge lasted only a few

months and through several dinner parties. In July of 1800, Coleridge

moved with his family to Keswick and never saw Robinson in per-

son again. The poetic exchange continued, however, with her “Ode,

Inscribed to the Infant Son of S. T. Coleridge, Esq.,” his reply “A

Stranger Minstrel,” her “Mrs. Robinson to the Poet Coleridge,” and

Wordsworth’s “Alcæus to Sappho,” which Coleridge sent to Stuart

presumably in tribute to her and out of concern for her health.

Wordsworth’s “Alcæus to Sappho” and Coleridge’s “A Stranger

Minstrel” are poems inf lected with the imminence of Robinson’s

death. The former poem by Wordsworth appeared unsigned in the

Morning Post on 24 November, a month before her death on 26

December 1800. Wordsworth wrote the poem over a year prior to

its publication, at least as early 27 Februrary 1799, when he sent it to

Coleridge from Goslar, while they were both in Germany (Letters 1:

256). Wordsworth’s editors speculate that Coleridge gave the poem its

title and added the word Sappho to the sixteenth line, but the original

m a nu s c r i pt of t he p o e m d o e s not e x i s t. A l l we k now i s t h at Wo rd s wo r t h

did not “care a farthing” for the poem, as he told Coleridge, presum-

ably giving the latter license to alter it as he saw fit (Letters 1: 256). As

a tribute to Robinson, the poem would seem to emphasize the erotic

nature of their correspondence by analogizing explicitly Robinson

with Sappho and implicitly Coleridge-Wordsworth with Sappho’s

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