The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

44 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

gives. Following her “various impulse,” Cowley plays with syllabics,

largely eschewing strict metrical feet, going for a sprightly effect in

extending and contracting the lengths of the lines in order to vary the

temporal recurrence of rhyme: the first couplet consists of ten- and

twelve- syllable lines; the triplet consists of two eight- syllable lines with

a concluding ten- syllable line; the next couplet of two eight- syllable

lines; the final couplet (given above) consists of an eight- syllable line

and then a twelve- syllable line. Cowley thus intends for the sound to

seem an echo of the sense. The “frigid square,” moreover, is a clever

way of describing the elegiac quatrain itself.

Moreover, his most recent poem “To Anna Matilda” ends with

Della Crusca depressed, claiming that, had she been there to com-

fort him, he would not have found so much despair in Belgium. His

comical equivocation thus subverts the sentiments expressed in the

“Elegy Written on the Plain of Fontenoy,” which was Della Crusca’s

most celebrated poem. After Anna Matilda’s critical response to

the elegy, this particular poem ends with Della Crusca wallowing

in his misery, his new humanitarian concern, having once again

bid farewell to love. Unlike the dead soldiers he previously had

mourned who, as Anna Matilda had pointed out, at least died with

valour, Della Crusca whines, “To me, no proffer’d meed must e’er

belong, / To me, who trod the vale of life unknown, / Whose

proudest boast was but an idle song.” (World 5 December 1787).

In her poem of 22 December, she basically advises him to get over

himself and go back to writing about love, which is a lot more fun

than war and death. Afraid that he will write no more love poetry,

feeling no longer the delicious pain, she reprimands his willingness

to settle for less:

Vapid Content her poppies round thee strew,^15

Whilst to the bliss of TASTE thou bid adieu!

To v u lg a r comforts be thou hence confin’d,

And the shrunk bays be from thy brow untwin’d.

Such condemnation of Della Crusca’s latest poetry illustrates the way

the writers were able to create tension that would keep readers inter-

ested. After all, they were not characters on a stage whose plot could

be enacted; the writers had to develop the relationship between their

avatars in a strictly textual and intertextual fashion. Anna Matilda’s

poem closes with the suggestion that Della Crusca’s preoccupation

with extra- erotic concerns sounds like someone running for pub-

lic office: responding to his description of his formerly erotic self as

9780230100251_03_ch01.indd 449780230100251_03_ch01.indd 44 12/31/2010 4:20:14 PM12/31/2010 4:20:14 PM

10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel Robinson

Cop

yright material fr

om www

.palgra

veconnect.com - licensed to Univer

sitetsbib

lioteket i

Tr

omso - P

algra

veConnect - 2011-04-13