Retrieving Fin-de-Siècle Women Poets: The Transformative Myths, Fragments and Voices of Webster, Blind and Levy

Abstract

The critical recuperation of late nineteenth-century women poets is due significantly to the renewed interest in and study of the poetical works of Augusta Webster, Mathilde Blind and Amy Levy (1860-90) by postmodern readers. A major reason for this ‘salvage’ may be that they represent and embody the profound and extraordinary changes that characterize the British Fin de Siècle, in which the transition from the Victorians to the Moderns implied the transformation or reconfiguration of certain myths or (hi)stories and the critical re-use or ‘recycling’ of major literary forms. This essay seeks to demonstrate that while Webster's poetry is firmly grounded in social activism and the exploration and dramatization of the nature of female experience, Blind's epic and dramatic verse creates new myths of human destiny, reclaiming the Poet's role as the singer of the age's scientific deeds, while Levy's lyrics signal the New Woman poet's role as victim of the pressures of emancipation. Through these hybrid and fragmentary forms, Webster, Blind and Levy literally give voice to unspeakable feelings and situations, in which the anomalous and the marginal are made central.