Abstract
ABSTRACT: Michael Field, pseudonym of the late-Victorian poetic duo Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper, created poems that operated as aesthetic hosts of artworks from previous centuries. The collection Long Ago (1889) hosts the poetic fragments of Sappho, while Sight and Song (1892) transports the paintings of the Old Masters into a new, textual abode. The poems highlight the importance of proportionality in the hosting dynamic, demonstrating how the host-guest relationship is formed by managing allotments of space. The form of Field’s lyrics show-case this negotiation in action through choices based on length and repetition: for example, extending a Sapphic fragment into an eight-line stanza or into forty lines; deciding where, in the original poem, to feature Sappho’s voice; and balancing literal description with impressionistic interpretation of paintings. The emphasis on form reveals how the poet-hosts manage their artist-guests through the poems’ rhetorical shape. In terms of hospitality, these poet-hosts achieve a particular freedom by letting past artworks inhabit their modern-era words.
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