The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

76 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

the perfection of art can seem to be natural. It has a particularly poi-

gnant dimension, related as it is to her performance as Perdita. In The

Winter’s Tale, Perdita and Polixenes debate this very question, when

Perdita remarks that the cross- bred carnations are “Nature’s bastards”

because “There is an art which in their piedness shares / With great

creating Nature” (4.4.87–8). Polixenes responds that the grafting is

“an art / Which does mend Nature – change it rather; but / The

art itself is Nature” (4.4.95–7). Perdita responds, as Robinson playing

her would have done, “So it is.” This scene is rich in irony because of

Polixenes’s own prejudices against impure stock and because of Perdita’s

discomfort in her costume—“Most goddess- like prank’d up”—when

she actually is a princess. But it clearly is a moment of deep resonance

for Robinson, not only because of the significance of the role itself to

her biography, but because the passage that cued her response onstage

remained an important theme in much of her own writing. The poem

to Reynolds that reaffirmed the characteristics of Laura Maria’s debut

in the Oracle explores t he t heme f urt her, while Robinson allows for t he

poem to ref lect figuratively her own image as painted by Reynolds:

What RAPHAEL boasted, and what TITIAN knew,

Immortal REYNOLDS! is excell’d by You.

‘Tis thine to tinge the lip with vermil dye,

To paint the softness of the melting eye;

With auburn hair luxuriantly display’d,

The iv’ry shoulder’s polish’d fall to shade,

To deck the well- turn’d arm with matchless grace,

To mark the dimpled smile on beauty’s face—

With cunning hand, the task is thine to throw

The veil transparent o’er the breast of snow.... (1: 60; 7–16)

Robinson is careful not to describe either of the portraits Reynolds

painted of her, but the female sitter who poses at the center of the poem

is a representative of all those, including Robinson, who provided sub-

jects for Reynolds’ art. If Robinson is thinking of her own experience

sitting for Reynolds and of the resulting portraits, then the passage

above acknowledges how little she as the sitter has to do with their

excellence. The lines emphasize instead the painter’s art, the way his

techniques and skills create the effects described in the poem. The lines

describe only Reynolds’ depictions, not the real features of the actual

subjects. Thus the ineffability of artistic genius: the breast is already

figurative as the artist paradoxically throws the transparent veil over

it, only to render it more vividly. Robinson knew of Reynolds’ theory

of “central forms,” a Platonic conception of physical forms partaking

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

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