246 Notes- Merry, who was prone to radical sentiments, may have found mem-
bership in the academy a way to associate with Tuscans hostile to
Leopold’s autocracy (Hargreaves- Mawdsley 29). Marshall suggests
that Merry’s “Della Crusca” pseudonym was a comment on the clos-
ing of this academy and the impotence of the Accademia Fiorentina
under the direction and “thumb” of Leopold (175, 177). Moloney,
however, sees Merry’s adoption of the name as apolitical (50–1).
Zuccato’s study of Petrarch in Romantic England includes some dis-
cussion of the Della Cruscans in Florence (73–7). The Accademia
della Crusca was reestablished under Napoleon in 1811. - Ha rgreaves- Mawdsley provides an extensive summary of this poetic
exchange, although he often than not laughs at Merry and Cowley
rather than with them. Labbe’s “Anthologised Romance,” reprinted
in her book The Romantic Paradox (39–66), is a far more insight-
ful reading that focuses on the poetic eroticism of the exchange.
McGann’s Poetics of Sensibility was among the first to take the
exchange seriously, making the crucial observation that Della
Cruscan poetry is self- consciously artificial. Pascoe’s chapter on
the Della Cruscans surveys the phenomenon, from The Florence
Miscellany through Gifford’s attack on them in The Baviad, but with
a particular interest in women’s participation in the phenomenon
and in its relationship to Romanticism (Romantic 68–94). Most
recently, Claire Knowles puts the Della Cruscans in the context of
her study of gender and performativity as these issues pertain to
literature of Sensibility (17–43). In a particularly refreshing study,
Jeffrey C. Robinson considers the Della Cruscans as “poets of the
Fancy” and argues that their inf luence drives Robinson’s poetry
throughout her career. I heartily concur. See Unfettering Poetry
111–38. - Based on the errata printed 25 December in the World and on subse-
quent printings, I have changed “shew” to “strew.” - See Bass 270; Byrne 247–8; Davenport 156; Gristwood 236.
2 Bell’s Laureates II:... So
Goes the World
- In her edition of Piozzi’s Thraliana Balderston quotes a letter by
Merry of 27 February 1788 to Mrs. Piozzi, in which he expresses
his doubt that Anna Matilda is Anna Seward and his certainty that
she is a married woman: “ ‘I rather doubt Miss Seward being Anna
Matilda, as she says in her last Ode “Love on my couch has pour’d
each sweet” Now tho’ the circumstance is very possible, yet the con-
fession is hardly probable for a Miss.’ ” (716 n. 3) - Werkmeister provides a fuller account of the dispute (165–8).
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10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel RobinsonCopyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket iTr
omso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-13