The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

56 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

And sings adieu in Bacchanalian strains.

FALSE Lover! TRUEST Poet! now farewell!

While vilifying Della Crusca’s capricious infidelity, she also comically

misconstrues the conclusion of Laura’s “To Him Who Will Understand

It” to imply that Laura’s final image of blooming, rejuvenated health,

and her figurative drinking her woes to oblivion is actually alcoholic

dissipation. Though printed on 26 February 1789, Cowley’s poem

appears in the World with the date “December 22, 1788,” indicating

that it is a response to Merry’s first poem “To Laura.” Obviously,

Cowley is corresponding from France. And to emphasize the playful,

winking nature of all of this, I should point out that, in the same

column, just below Anna Matilda’s poem, Topham printed the fol-

lowing: “Mrs. Cowley is now at Paris; and all who know her talents,

must wish, that she may not lose her moments in inactivity.” Again,

Topham winks at his readers by visually juxtaposing the avatar with

the author’s actual identity.

Robinson naturally is quick to return the serve. Her final contri-

bution to the triangle, Laura’s “To Anna Matilda,” is the epitome of

the ludic heteroerotics as well as the lyrical exuberance that charac-

terizes the Della Crusca network and Robinson’s poetry. Although

her connection to Merry will continue, I want to end this chapter

by emphasizing how her literary debut takes place in the ludic space

of the newspaper, a space created by the network. As I hope I have

shown, the poetry of the Della Crusca network is meant to be amus-

ing. But there is serious play going on here, and it includes real literary

ambition—particularly on the part of Robinson. This exuberance is

the key to understanding Robinson’s poetry. Perhaps her poetry does

not, as Keats thought poetry ought to do, “surprise by a fine excess”;

perhaps her excesses are not so delicately fashioned. Keats believed

poetry’s “touches of beauty” should never leave its “reader breathless,

instead of content.” Perhaps he learned this from the Della Cruscans,

for whom “breathless” was a mode as well as an end. Robinson never

completely loses this, as we shall see, and she learned much of this

aesthetic from Della Crusca and Anna Matilda. Robinson’s contribu-

tions to this exchange show a fiercely ambitious poet at work, employ-

ing the formal tools at her disposal in competition with the other

poets. She is thus eager to demonstrate her own virtuosity. And she

skillfully employs her formal choices in the service of the ludic mode:

So much of this poetry counteracts pure sentimentality in favor of

a disorienting range of effects—what the reviewer mentioned ear-

lier calls an “orgasm.” This orgasm, so ineffably expressed, winks at

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