The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Bell’s Laureates II 89

before France is even mentioned. Ainsi va le monde is a manifesto of

taste as much as it is of poetic aspiration and acclamation. Robinson,

as Laura Maria, laments the absence of Shakespeare and Milton,

while potentially great young writers such as Thomas Chatterton and

Thomas Otway (also celebrated by Charlotte Smith) have suffered

from neglect during their brief lives. Unintentionally ironic perhaps,

Robinson dismisses contemporary poetry in the figure of “a f lutt’ring

form” who has replaced the English Muse and who is nothing more

than a “flippant, senseless, aery thing” (45, 47). Many critics would

have agreed with her, and some even warned her of following too

closely in Merry’s footsteps. Shortly after the publication of these two

poems—not so much before—Della Crusca became synonymous with

bad taste. Reviewing her 1791 volume, the English Review recognized

her affinities with “the new school of poets,” those associated with or

imitative of Della Crusca who filled the newspapers: “We are suffo-

cated by the sweets of these poets, and dazzled by the glare of their tin-

sel.... Mrs. Robinson must beware this species of fascination” (42–3).

Much of Ainsi va le monde, indeed, concerns taste. Echoing Pope’s

Essay on Criticism, Robinson condemns the shallow literary produc-

tions of her day and the “vitiated taste” of the public (58): “True Wit

recedes, when blushing Reason views / This spurious offspring of the

banish’d Muse” (51–2). Robinson calls for the poetic to inspire a con-

temporary English poet—possibly Merry or more likely herself—to do

for her country’s literature what she believes Sir Joshua Reynolds has

done for English art. Incorporating her shorter poem “To Sir Joshua

Reynolds” into this longer one, she makes it clear that Reynolds’

genius surveys not only “the dimpled smile on Beauty’s face” but also

“the statesman’s thought,” “the matron’s eye serene,” and “the poet’s

fire” (1: 79; 84–8). Having been painted by Reynolds at least twice

and intending to reveal her identity, Robinson implicitly reminds the

public that all of these characteristics combine in the image of herself.

Reynolds’ “polish’d pencil’s touch divine,” like Merry’s, will ensure

his fame and that of those he paints (such as herself) (90).

Robinson’s rumination on Reynolds leads her to an epistemologi-

cal exploration of poetic inspiration and composition. The genius of

such creative artists as Merry, Reynolds, and herself is activated by

the imagination’s compact with reason. Robinson describes how “the

mind, with sickening pangs oppress’d, / Flies to the Muse” only to

find Reason, “a blest repose” (95–6, 98). This compact, she asserts,

leads to “calm ref lection” that “shuns the sordid crowd, / The sense-

less chaos of the little proud” (103–4), an aesthetic of isolated poetic

contemplation that conjures the great poets from the past, Shakespeare

9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 899780230100251_04_ch02.indd 89 12/28/2010 11:08:29 AM12/28/2010 11:08:29 AM

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