Soft passions and darling themes: from Elizabeth Singer Rowe (1674–1737) to Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806)

Abstract

The importance of Elizabeth Rowe has been variously acknowledged in the development of the novel and as a writer of pious works. Her devotional prose was much reprinted throughout the eighteenth century. In recent years, critical attention has focused on the “lost” Elizabeth Rowe, that is, onher earlier incarnation as a poet of the 1690s, writing under the pen name “Philomela” and known by her maiden name of Elizabeth Singer. She seems to exist in two distinct cultural worlds: the Augustan poet celebrating love – including sexual love – and passion; and the pious moralist whose work appealed to the prudent and polite. One leading bluestocking, Elizabeth Carter, was a fervent admirer and had modelled her own early career as a writer in the 1730son the example of this predecessor whom Stuart Curran calls the “presiding moral and aesthetic exemplar for the successful woman writer” in the eighteenth century. This article questions whether the passionate poet, Elizabeth Singer, wasever really “lost” to readers like Elizabeth Carter. In doing so, it explores thenature of the influence of an Augustan woman writer, asking what kind of an “exemplar” she was and what kind of success she embodied. Passion rather thanpiety emerges as the unexpected link between the generations. It was above all the strength of passion, and the autonomy conferred by passion, that Elizabeth Carter – a woman famously self-regulating and properly self-controlled – drew from her enthusiasm for Elizabeth Singer Rowe.