Charlotte Mew
- Charlotte Mew
-
Charlotte Mary Mew (15 November 1869 – 24 March 1928) was an English poet, whose work spans the cusp between Victorian poetry and Modernism.
She was born in Bloomsbury, London the daughter of the architect Frederick Mew, who designed Hampstead town hall[1] and Anna Kendall.[2] She attended Lucy Harrison's School for Girls and lectures at University College London. [3] Her father died in 1898 without making adequate provision for his family; two of her siblings suffered from mental illness, and were committed to institutions, and three others died in early childhood leaving Charlotte, her mother and her sister, Anne. Charlotte and Anne made a pact never to marry for fear of passing on insanity to their children. (One author calls Charlotte "chastely lesbian".[4]) Through most of her adult life, Mew wore masculine attire and kept her hair short, adopting the appearance of a dandy. [5]
In 1894, Mew succeeded in getting a short story into The Yellow Book,[6] but wrote very little poetry at this time. Her first collection of poetry, The Farmer's Bride, was published in 1916, in chapbook format, by the Poetry Bookshop; in the USA, Her second collection was entitled Saturday Market and published in 1921 by Macmillan. It earned her the admiration of Sydney Cockerell.
Her poems are varied: some of them (such as 'Madeleine in Church') are passionate discussions of faith and the possibility of belief in God; others are proto-modernist in form and atmosphere ('In Nunhead Cemetery'). Many of her poems are in the form of dramatic monologues, and she often wrote from the point of view of a male persona ('The Farmer's Bride'). Two concern mental illness - Ken and On the Asylum Road.
Mew gained the patronage of several literary figures, notably Thomas Hardy, who called her the best woman poet of her day, Virginia Woolf, who said she was 'very good and quite unlike anyone else', and Siegfried Sassoon. She obtained a small Civil List pension with the aid of Cockerell, Hardy, John Masefield and Walter de la Mare. This helped ease her financial difficulties.
After the death of her sister from cancer in 1927, she descended into a deep depression, and was admitted to a nursing home where she eventually committed suicide[7] by drinking Lysol.
Mew is buried in the northern part of Hampstead Cemetery, London NW6.
References
- ^ Hampstead - Local Government | British History Online
- ^ Warner, Val, ed. Collected Poems and Selected Prose of Charlotte Mews. New York: Routledge, 2003, p. ix.
- ^ Spender, Dale and Janet Todd, ed. British Women Writers: An Anthology from the Fourteenth Century to the Present. New York: Bedrick Books, 1989, p. 695.
- ^ Rice, Nelljean McConeghey (2003). A New Matrix for Modernism: A Study of the Lives and Poetry of Charlotte Mew and Anna Wikham. Routledge. p. 35. ISBN 0415941407
- ^ Rice, p. 6
- ^ Mew, Charlotte M. (1894). Passed. The Yellow Book. 2. London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane. pp. 121–41. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Book/Volume_2/Passed.
- ^ Warner, Val. "Mary Magdalene and the Bride: The Work of Charlotte Mew". http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=5932. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
- Penelope Fitzgerald (2002) Charlotte Mew and Her Friends, Flamingo.
- Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 19: British Poets, 1880-1914. London, 1983
- Charlotte Mew: Collected Poems and Prose, Edited with an introduction by Val Warner. London, 1981
External links
Categories:- 1869 births
- 1928 deaths
- English poets
- English women writers
- Female suicides
- LGBT people from England
- Suicides by poison
- Victorian poets
- Women poets
- Writers who committed suicide
- Suicides in England
- People from Bloomsbury
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
Look at other dictionaries:
Charlotte Mew — Charlotte Mary Mew (15 novembre 1869 – 24 mars 1928) est une poétesse anglaise de l époque victorienne. Son œuvre est peu importante par la quantité, et elle a très peu publié. Cependant, des poètes comme Siegfried Sassoon ou Ezra Pound la… … Wikipédia en Français
Charlotte Mew — Charlotte Mary Mew (Bloomsbury, 15 de noviembre de 1869 – 24 de marzo de 1928) fue una poetisa y cuentista inglesa, cuya obra se encuentra a caballo entre la poesía victoriana y el Modernismo. Contenido 1 Vida 2 Referencias … Wikipedia Español
Charlotte Mew — Charlotte Mary Mew (* 15. November 1869 in London; † 24. März 1928 ebenda) war eine englische Dichterin. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Leben und Schaffen 2 Werke (Auswahl) 3 Literatur … Deutsch Wikipedia
Mew, Charlotte — ▪ British author in full Charlotte Mary Mew born Nov. 15, 1869, London, Eng. died March 24, 1928, London English writer who is notable for her short well crafted, highly original poetry. Mew s life was largely unhappy. Two of her… … Universalium
Magical Meow Meow Taruto — 魔法少女猫たると (Mahō Shōjo Neko Taruto) Genre Comedy, Magical girl Manga Written by Kaishaku … Wikipedia
October 2010 in sports — << October 2010 >> S M T W T … Wikipedia
Friedrich Engels — Friedrich Engels, Fotograf George Lester ca. 1868[1] … Deutsch Wikipedia
Shorter University — This article is about Shorter University, formerly Shorter College. For other colleges, see Shorter College (disambiguation). Shorter University Motto Lux Veritas Motto in English Light, Truth Established 1873 … Wikipedia
Mewtwo — National Pokédex Dragonite Mewtwo (#150) Mew Series Pokémon seri … Wikipedia
Ichigo Momomiya — est un personnage de fiction appartenant à l’univers du manga et anime Tôkyô mew mew. Elle a été créée et dessinée par la journaliste Reiko Yoshida et la dessinatrice Mia Ikumi, en 2002. Il s’agit de la figure principale du manga. En japonais,… … Wikipédia en Français
