The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

16 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

early on defined her poetry as “Della Cruscan.” As Martha suggests,

the allegorical nature of these odes makes them not “serious,” which

I take to mean not “weighty or grave,” not possessing great complex-

ity; rather, these poems are pleasantly diverting. As it turns out, how-

ever, Martha’s ode “To the Blue- Bell” has a political subtext that fails

to amuse most of her aristocratic audience. The poem concludes,

Then why dispute this wide domain,

Since NATURE knows no partial care?

The nipping blast, the pelting rain,

Both will with equal ruin share:

Then what is vain DISTINCTION, say,

But the short blaze of summer’s day?

And what is pomp, or beauty’s boast?

An empty shadow, seen and lost!

Such is thy power,

Va in f lower!

Only a “liberal nobleman” defends Martha’s poem as “ ‘truly poeti-

cal,’ ” asserting that “ ‘the moral lesson which they teach is excellent’ ”

(7: 134). He obviously gets the allegory, but his praise of the poem

as “poetical” is an appreciation of what the poet is doing with form;

he recognizes the poem’s unique and ingenious form: ababccdd 4 e 2 e 2.

The strength of the poem is the successful marrying of its “lesson”

with a charming lyrical form. Robinson’s greatest strength as a poet

is her ability to work in form, demonstrating her command of tradi-

tional forms, such as the heroic couplet, blank verse, and the sonnet,

as well as her inventiveness in creating her own original, or nonce,

forms, such as the stanza of “To the Blue- Bell.” This poem is homo-

strophic because Robinson performs the same stanza throughout the

poem. Not all odes do this, nor do all of Robinson’s poems do this,

but she makes a clear formal choice to portray her heroine as a poet

who works in fixed forms. Indeed, each of the interpolated poems

in The Natural Daughter is a unique, fixed form that stands in stark

contrast to the loose, at times rambling, and hurried feel of the prose

narrative.

This scene is itself a striking and playful moment of self- ref lexivity

as Robinson draws attention to herself as author of the novel in relation

to her other poetic identities: one “venerable dowager” remarks, “ ‘I

suppose she is one of the Julias or Sapphos of the present day. I never

read their productions without being amused beyond measure—poor

things’ ” (7: 133). Robinson began using the “Julia” pseudonym in

1791, when several of her poems signed thus appeared in John Bell’s

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

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