The Voice of Martha Ray

Abstract

In 1798 Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth published a collection of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads. It is now critically acclaimed to be one of the defining moments in the history of English poetry. In the renowned Preface to the collection, Wordsworth asserted that they were intended to “speak a plainer and more emphatic language,” the “language really used by men.” One of the poems found in the Ballads was entitled The Thorn. Wordsworth later claimed that he wrote it whilst walking the Quantock Hills one wind-battered day. Its subject was child-murder and it purported to tell the story of Martha Ray. Few subjects were better calculated to engage public attention. Infanticide “scares” were frequent in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England, discussion as to the efficacy or otherwise of infanticide law urgently engaged in parliament, in the press, and in popular literature. The Thorn remains one of the most striking contributions to this latter genre; a poem which was intended to make its readers contemplate rather more deeply the apparent injustices written into the law of child-murder in late eighteenth century England.