“A STRANGE, UNNATURAL DIVORCE/BETWIXT DELIGHT AND ME”: AMY LEVY, MELANCHOLIA, and the POETIC TEMPERAMENT

Abstract

ABSTRACT Amy Levy's suicide has overshadowed much criticism of her work and life, but scholars have neglected to address Levy's experiences of low mood during her lifetime. This article examines Levy's writing about the persistent feelings of sadness in her life, in both her correspondence and literary work. It suggests that Levy drew on contemporary discourses of low mood to explore the idea of a melancholic poetic temperament in her poetry and fiction, which found its most distilled expression in her suicidal poet motif. This article discusses Levy's use of the suicidal poet in three texts “A Minor Poet” (1884), “Cohen of Trinity” (1889), and “Sokratics on the Strand” (1884). These texts demonstrate Levy's critical examination of melancholy as a component of the poetic identity, rather than an expressive engagement with suicidal feelings. Through the use of the dramatic monologue and, in “Sokratics”, a dramatic dialogue, Levy stages competing perspectives on the poetic temperament, reflecting on the value and purpose of sadness for the artistic mind.