Late Letters Research Articles

Spinoza's Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens by Matthew Homan

Reviewed by: Spinoza's Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens by Matthew Homan Yitzhak Y. Melamed Matthew Homan. Spinoza's Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pp. xv + 256. Hardback, €114.39. Like most, if not all, of his contemporaries, Spinoza never developed a full-fledged philosophy of mathematics. Still, his numerous remarks about mathematics attest not only to his deep interest in the subject (a point that is also confirmed by the significant presence of mathematical books in his library), but also to his quite elaborate and perhaps unique understanding of the nature of mathematics. At the very center of his thought about mathematics stands a paradox (or, at least, an apparent paradox): Mathematics provides Spinoza with an epistemic model. Mathematical knowledge is certain (Spinoza, Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt [Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1925], referred to as G and cited by volume.page.line number; G II.138.9), clear (G IV.261.8), and free from teleological thinking (G II.79.33), but the objects of mathematical knowledge—namely, mathematical entities—are nothing but "auxilia imaginationis [aids of the imagination]" (G IV.57.16 and II.83.15; quotations are from The Collected Works of Spinoza, trans. Edwin Curley, 2 vols. [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985–2016]), entities that are not real and merely assist the imagination in carving up the world in a manner that is suitable to our limited and distortive cognitive capacities. Matthew Homan's new book is a study of Spinoza's epistemology "based on an interpretation of the epistemic and ontological status of mathematical entities in Spinoza" (4). The book has many virtues. It is well written, clear, and highly informed by the secondary literature. For the most part, Homan defends his claims through serious engagement and [End Page 329] consideration of objections and alternatives to his reading. The book is also quite ambitious in its scope as it describes Spinoza's response to skepticism, his view of the ontology of mathematics, his scientific methodology, his understanding of essence, and the notion of scientia intuitiva, the highest kind of cognition in Spinoza's epistemology. It is impossible to do justice to such a book in a brief review. For this reason, I will focus my discussion here on two critical points: one related to Spinoza's understanding of mathematics, the other to his understanding of the proper order of philosophizing. According to Homan, Spinoza is a (weak) realist about mathematics and mathematization. He defines this notion of realism as the thesis "that all finite bodies in nature are geometrical inasmuch as they have some figure—whether circular, triangular, or what have you—just by virtue of being spatially extended" (8). Thus, to count as a genuine realist it would suffice to assert that "bodies must have one kind of shape or another" (9). This radically relaxed definition of mathematical realism includes even views that assert that mathematical entities "exist [only] as properties of bodies" (8), as long as these entities (or properties) are mind-independent (views of this latter kind Homan calls "weak realism" [8]). According to Homan, the category of weak realism encompasses not only the views of Aristotle and his followers, but also those of Pierre Gassendi, Thomas Hobbes, and even Spinoza (9). One might question the analytical benefit of employing such a deflationary definition of mathematical realism (few philosophers will count as nonrealist under this definition), but for my part, I was still unsure whether Spinoza would count as a realist even under Homan's permissive definition. In one of his late letters, Spinoza notes that geometrical shapes are just "beings of reason, and not real beings" (G IV.335.4). Addressing this passage, Homan suggests that Spinoza might be referring in this passage only to shapes that are abstracted from concrete bodies, while shapes that are embedded determinations of concrete bodies are—so claims Homan—real (148; cf. 70). Unfortunately, Homan provides hardly any textual support for the suggestion that Spinoza draws such a distinction between different conceptions of shape. Moreover, one may wonder in what sense embedded shapes are the objects of mathematics (prima facie, geometrical proofs seem to be indifferent to the fact...

Two American Poets—Wallace Stevens & William Carlos Williams: From the Collection of Alan M. Klein. The Grolier Club, New York, 2019.

<i>Two American Poets—Wallace Stevens &amp; William Carlos Williams: From the Collection of Alan M. Klein.</i> The Grolier Club, New York, 2019.

Further Addenda and Corrigenda to Annotations of Boswell’s Hypochondriack

Further Addenda and Corrigenda to Annotations of Boswell’s <i>Hypochondriack</i>

Thomas More: First and Best Apologist for Erasmus

Contrary to the legend that evolved in late sixteenth century Recusant More hagiography, of a distancing or even a breach in the spiritual and intellectual friendship between Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam, the primary texts point to the persistence of an intimate bond between them. Even More's late letter to Erasmus informing him of his resignation addresses the matter of Erasmus's churchmanship and doctrinal reliability. Here we find More defending and praising the writings of Erasmus, and not merely against the rabid and ill-willed scholastic ignoramuses who had attacked his New Testament translation, but even against morally upright and well-meaning ecclesiastical scholars, who had failed to remove the beam from their own eyes before hypocritically endeavoring to pluck the speck out of Erasmus's. Thomas More adhered to the commendation of Erasmus published by Pope Leo X, and whether More's modern admirers like it or not, Thomas More remained for two decades Erasmus's first and best apologist.

Stevens's Late Letters as Addresses to Posterity

Stevens's Late Letters as Addresses to Posterity

Thomas More's silence and the ethics of conscience

This article explores silence and the ethics of conscience through a study of the life and late letters of Sir Thomas More. More's silence is a paradigm case for the contest of conscience under conditions of tyranny, and it is one of the most influential in the formulation of principles of conscience and human rights in modern constitutional democracies. The article focuses on More's prosecution by King Henry VIII, and offers close analysis of the concept of conscience discussed in his last letters. The approach is historical and philosophical, and puts More's case in dialogue with other classic and modern texts on the ethics of conscience. Emphasis is placed on More's principle of self-determination as essential to conscience.

The Frenchwoman Dépaysée: Edith Wharton and Gabrielle Landormy

Abstract In a series of late unpublished letters that Wharton wrote to Elizabeth Gaskell (Lily) Norton between 1924 and 1937, an Edith Wharton character gone astray appears in the form of Gabrielle Landormy, a young Frenchwoman whose transnational wanderings between France and the United States made her, in a term that Millicent Bell applied to Wharton herself, dépaysée, or “out of [her] element, adrift and astray.” Gabrielle Landormy worked for Wharton during World War I but throughout the 1920s and 1930s drifts between France and the United States as an object of irritation and concern. This article, based on hitherto-undiscussed sources, traces Landormy's movements and Wharton's reactions to them as revealed in the letters and other documents, to demonstrate that Landormy's case calls into question the ways nationality, the transnational body, and troublesome questions of sexuality and autonomy can be addressed, especially by those who, like Wharton, would prefer to have women conform to a national ideal.

‘Our Looks, Two Looks’: Miniature Portraits in the Letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell

Abstract This article examines parallels between the exchange of miniature portraits in late eighteenth-century letters and the exchange of photographs and keepsakes in the twentieth-century correspondence of American poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Drawing on theories of the miniature in Susan Stewart’s work, alongside art-historical and literary-critical accounts of the practice of exchanging miniature portraits in letters, the article builds on arguments that portraits go hand-in-hand with the genre of letter writing. I argue that previous criticism of the Bishop-Lowell correspondence has not yet adequately explored their epistolary discussion and exchange of visual materials. As in the case of their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century predecessors, for Bishop and Lowell, letter writing frequently involved a literal and metaphorical exchange of portraits. The article places particular photographs in their original context alongside letters, demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between images and text and the key role played by the visual in letter writing. It provides a fresh reading of Bishop’s and Lowell’s linked poems, ‘The Armadillo’ and ‘Skunk Hour’, arguing that these poems are a means of portrait-painting in relation to the other. The poems are examined alongside descriptions of an antique miniature cameo, sent by Lowell to Bishop as a companion to his poem, which functions as an ambivalently gendered portrait of Bishop. Finally, the poets’ interlocking memoirs, ‘91 Revere Street’ and ‘Memories of Uncle Neddy’, are analysed to show their origin in letters, and their shared preoccupation with portraiture, scale and framing.

Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide. Edited by Cristiana Sogno, Bradley K. Storin, and Edward J. Watts

<i>Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide</i>. Edited by <scp>Cristiana Sogno</scp>, <scp>Bradley</scp> K. <scp>Storin</scp>, and <scp>Edward</scp> J. <scp>Watts</scp>

Late Dickinson: In Praise of Blandness, Agedness, and Oblivion

This article further investigates Dickinson’s Chinese aesthetic under the rubric of Blandness, Agedness and Oblivion, a strand of poetic development in Dickinson’s late years. Echoing In Praise of Blandness by Francois Jullien, a French Sinologist, this critical framework mainly derives from a nuanced reinterpretation of “The Gentian has a parched Corolla -” (Fr1458/1877). The discussion also covers some infrequently studied poems, making a case for their cross-cultural significances and implications for reexamining Dickinson’s late mind. Dickinson’s celebrating Blandness, Agedness and Oblivion closely connects with her principle of Use of Uselessness and her practicing a wandering at ease, which in her late years is reassessed and reconfirmed. Reading Dickinson’s late letters from the Chinese perspective aims at illustrating aspects of her life and roles she has played, disabusing the image of an aloof recluse.

Paul Silas Peterson: A third time, Erich Przywara, the Jews and Stimmen der Zeit: With a response to Aaron Pidel and a brief look into Przywara’s late letters to Carl Schmitt

Abstract In diesem Aufsatz werden die Veröffentlichungen des Jesuiten Erich Przywara und der sehr einflussreichen jesuitischen Zeitschrift Stimmen der Zeit aus den frühen 193oern Jahren und besonders aus dem Jahr 1933 analysiert. In diesem Zusammenhang antworte ich auch meinen Kritikern. Außerdem werden die Hintergründe und Quellen der spezifischen Form des Antisemitismus dargestellt, die in den Stimmen der Zeit vertreten wurde. Deutsche Jesuiten propagierten 1933 durchaus radikale Positionen in der Zeitschrift. In dem katholischen Blatt liest man u. a., dass die Juden dem deutschen Volk mehr Schaden als Nutzen brächten. Es wurde damals auch die nordische Rasse als für Herrschaft besonders geeignet bezeichnet. Im letzten Teil dieses Aufsatzes werden Przywaras spätere Briefe an Carl Schmitt, den gläubigen antisemitischen deutschen Katholiken, analysiert. Sie zeigen, dass Przywara von dessen antidemokratischer politischer Theorie der 1930er Jahre zutiefst beeindruckt war und die Ideen des Kronjuristen des Dritten Reiches sogar noch in der Zeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg verbreiten wollte.

Friendship in the Early Letters of Keats

Keats's treatment of friendship takes shape even in his early letters strictly within bounds of his profound skepticism and his intense awareness of human limitations, sorrow, and death. The late letters are filled with wonderfully moving gestures and declarations of friendship in face of death, and brilliant formulations about particular nuances of friendship. But just as Keats proclaims in Sleep and Poetry (1816), noblest poetry is not that Flora, and old Pan (102) but rather of the agonies, strife / Of human hearts (124-25), his early letters present unequivocal testimony that he understands friendship not as an escape from painful world (though does occasionally serve as a temporary refuge, as do certain kinds of art) but as one important way of coming terms with it. Like poetry or any other form of beauty, including love, friendship is shaped by transience and suffering and generates values that make possible accept those realities and even discover in them a paradoxical wellspring of consolation and hope, what in Hyperion he calls a sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self' (1.36). Keats's conception of friendship is modeled on same principle that structures his general view of human situation, namely, a deep acceptance of limitations together with a capacious sense of possibilities within those boundaries. One can see this characteristic combination of realism and idealism, or tough-mindedness and tender-heartedness, even early in 1818. Writing his friend Benjamin and contemplating woes of a particular unfortunate Family, Keats wonders how they survived and rejects sort of otherworldly and overly idealistic remedies that he associates with skyey knight errantry of enthralled Endymion of Book I, which Keats had completed only a week before. In precisely this context of hard-headed facing up suffering, Keats proceeds in very next sentence both thank and praise for sparing Keats some of his own pain: tearing, my dear friend, a spiritless and gloomy letter up rewrite me is what shall never forget--it was me a thing (L, 1.209). This is consistent with Aristotelian observation that while it is perhaps Fitting for a man go unasked and eagerly a friend in misfortune, we should reluctant ask our friend share our misfortunes (270). Although Keats is clearly expressing gratitude for Bailey's not burdening him with his sorrow, crucial point is that Keats's appreciates his friend's tact in direct proportion his own sense of pervasiveness of misfortune and suffering that he has just been addressing. Virtually every time Keats uses word real in this way in his letters there is an association with friendship. He tells Reynolds sisters, for example, that to you my dear friends Marrianne and Jane shall ever feel grateful for having made known me so a fellow as Bailey (L, 1. 160). He tells Reynolds himself that I have been getting more and more close you eve day and that I have felt pleasure of loving a sister in Law.... Things like these, and they are real, have made me resolve have a care of my health--you must be as careful (L, 1.325). And finally, in one of Keats's most important letters about friendship, he rounds off his earlier discussion of of Maiden-Thought by telling Reynolds: Moore's present Hazlitt is real--I like that Moore and am glad saw him at Theatre just before left Town. Tom has spit a leetle blood this afternoon, and that is rather a damper--but know--the truth is there is something in World. Your third Chamber of Life shall be a lucky and a gentle one--stored with wine of love--and Bread of Friendship (L, 1.282-83). In Keats's letters word real usually has force of something that is both an undeniably concrete human actuality and a quality that binds us earth, in much same way that, in vale of Soul-making letter, suffering paradoxically does. …

Reading Descartes as a Stoic

Reading Descartes as a Stoic: Appropriate Action, Virtue, and the Passions Donald Rutherford (University of California, San Diego) Although Descartes does not use the terms officium or devoir with any frequency, his ethics gives a central place to the notion of appropriate action in a sense reminiscent of the Stoics’s kathekon. Within this category are included a human being’s duties to God and to other human beings, and actions whose aptness stems from their promotion of the survival and health of the body. While noting these parallels, I also show how Descartes’s accounts of virtue and the passions diverge from Stoic views, ascribing these differences in part to his acceptance of the threefold division of goods (moral, bodily, external) rejected by the Stoics. Introduction Stoicism has served as a reference point for many interpretations of Descartes’s moral philosophy. Descartes himself provides support for such an association in letters to Princess Elisabeth and in works from the Discours de la methode to Les Passions de l’âme. Yet caution must be exercised in extrapolating from this evidence. In contrast to Neostoic writers such as Justus Lipsius and Guillaume Du Vair, Descartes claims no allegiance to Stoicism or to any other sect of the ancients, whose methods he finds inadequate. Moreover, there are substantial doctrinal differences between Descartes and the Stoics. Given this, the attempt to label him a “Stoic” in any strict sense of the word must be rejected. 1 Despite this conclusion, I believe, there remains a case for reading Descartes as a Stoic, or for adopting Stoicism as a framework within which to interpret his moral philosophy. Taking up this perspective requires assuming that Stoicism is relevant to the comprehension of Descartes’s ethics, but it does not commit one to the thesis that Descartes is a Stoic, or that Stoicism is unique in the light it casts on his views. As I intend my title, it signifies the strategy of elucidating Descartes’s ethical theory by probing the parallels between it and Stoic ethics. Irrespective of Descartes’s intentions or his knowledge of Stoicism, his ethical thought follows channels dug by the Stoics. By making these traces explicit, we can deepen our understanding of his moral philosophy and of the extent to which ancient patterns of ethical thought persist in the early modern period. 2 In what follows, I pursue this strategy with special attention to the Stoic concept of kathekon, or officium, expressed variously in French as ‘convenable’ and ‘devoir’, and in English as ‘proper function’, ‘appropriate action’, and ‘duty’ (to mention only a few of the possibilities). The range of Cf. Olivo 1999, who surveys the earlier literature on the topic. Among other recent studies that explore Stoic elements in Descartes’s ethics, see Marshall 1998; Mehl 1999; Shapiro 2011. 2 In speaking of Descartes’s “moral philosophy” or “ethics”, I refer to the views expressed in his late letters and in the Passions, as against the “morale par provision” of the Discours or “la plus haute et la plus parfaite Morale” projected in the preface to the French translation of the Principia. On the relation among these different versions of his moral philosophy, see Rodis-Lewis 1957; Kambouchner 2008.

Kopieergedrag

Abstract Copy that. The forms and functions of copies in the late medieval letter exchange of Hanseatic towns This article argues that copies distributed as part of the political communication in northern Europe were more than a substitute for the originals or simply an efficient way of spreading information. The case of the Hanseatic towns shows that copies could be refined instruments of diplomacy: they could be a way to express inclusion, support, or openness and impartiality, to give a favour, or show willingness to resolve a conflict. Equally, a copy could exclude, put under pressure, obscure, or manipulate, and even lead to serious conflicts. Circulating copies – or deciding not to circulate them – was a conscious, complex choice made by town councils, individuals, and also rulers. In this analysis a distinction is made between diachronic and synchronic copies, since there were differences in their form and intended functions.

Writing Pain: Sensibility and Suffering in the Late Letters of Anna Seward and Mary Robinson

‘Writing Pain’ argues that Anna Seward‘s Letters (1811) and Mary Robinson‘s letters (1800) create alternative models of sensibility from the suffering poet of Charlotte Smith‘s Elegiac Sonnets. Immensely popular, Smith‘s sonnets made feminine suffering a source of poetic agency by aestheticizing and privatizing it. However, despite their sincerity, her sonnets effaced the physical, nervous body of sensibility on which Seward‘s and Robinsons early poetic reputations had depended and for which they had been mocked. The popularity of Smith‘s model made it an important model for women poets, but, by the end of the eighteenth century, sensibility was also associated with sickness and artifice. For Seward and Robinson, who wanted to build their literary reputations but were living with disabled bodies, Smiths example needed to be reimagined to account for the reciprocity of body and mind as they struggled to write through pain.

Scholia

Scholia Paul Goring The editors of the Florida Letters identify the recipient of Letter 242 as Laurence Sulivan (c.1713–1786), a high-ranking administrator of the East India Company and subscriber to the posthumous volumes of Sterne’s Sermons (1769). Their identification builds on the work of Lewis Perry Curtis, the editor of Letters of Laurence Sterne (1935), who proposed two candidates for the letter’s recipient. In the source text of the letter—Lydia Medalle’s 1775 edition of her father’s letters—the recipient is identified as ‘L. S. Esq.’ which was expanded to ‘L. S—n Esq.’ for the second edition of 1776. Curtis suggested this referred to Sulivan or to Luke Scrafton (1732–1770), another East India Company man and subscriber to Sterne’s Sermons, and he cited evidence to suggest that Sulivan was the more likely of the two. The Florida editors present further support for Sulivan’s candidature—his closeness to Lord Shelburne, whom Sterne knew—and they name him as the addressee. However, other evidence suggests the letter was far more probably—indeed almost certainly— written to Luke Scrafton. Among several pointers to Scrafton (for which see the article cited below) the most compelling is the fact that the addressee had been to Italy and was interested in the visual arts: Sterne refers to some pictures ‘‘which you brought from Italy’’ (650). There is no evidence that Sulivan was ever in Italy, while Scrafton, we know, definitely had been and had proved himself a keen collector of Italian art. A revision of note 1 to Letter 242 and a new addressee is suggested. 650, n. 1: Luke Scrafton] Medalle has ‘‘L. S. Esq.’’ in 1775, but her second edition (1776) extends this to ‘‘L. S—n, Esq.’’ The addressee is almost certainly Luke Scrafton (1732–1770), an employee of the East India Company, who had served the Company in India before establishing himself in London at the beginning of the 1760s. Through the company Scrafton would have been connected with William and Anne James. Scrafton was among the subscribers to the posthumous volumes of Sterne’s Sermons in 1769. Earlier identification of the addressee as Laurence Sulivan (c. 1713–1786) is much less probable. Like Scrafton, Sulivan was an East India Company man and a subscriber to the posthumous Sermons, but internal evidence in the letter—the addressee’s interest in the visual arts and the indication that he had been in Italy—renders Scrafton far more likely than Sulivan. It is unlikely that Sulivan was ever in Italy—see George K. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of Laurence Sulivan (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2006). Scrafton, though, had travelled to Italy in 1763 where he proved himself to be a keen collector and commissioner of art—see John Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701–1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 844. See Curtis, 413, n. 1, for the first proposal that Medalle’s abbreviation refers to either Luke Scrafton or Laurence Sulivan. For the convincing case for Scrafton over Sulivan see Paul Goring, ‘‘A New Identification of the Addressee of a Late Letter by Laurence Sterne,’’ Notes & Queries (2013), 60.1, 93–95. [End Page 87] Paul Goring Norwegian University of Science and Technology Copyright © 2014, Roy S. Wolper, W. B. Gerard, E. Derek Taylor, and David F. Venturo

A New Identification of the Addressee of a Late Letter by Laurence Sterne

A New Identification of the Addressee of a Late Letter by Laurence Sterne

Errors in Logic and Statistics Plague a Meta-Analysis (response to Andow and Lövei 2012): Table 1.

As we noted previously (Shelton et al. 2009a, b), we strongly believe in the power of meta-analyses to help advance our collective understanding of the potential risks of Bt crops for nontarget organisms by identifying negative, neutral, and positive effects of the technology in both laboratory and field studies. Although we agree on this point, it is equally important that such studies do not contain errors in logic or statistics. We acknowledge that Andow and Lovei (2012) have corrected a statistical error in their previous publications (Lovei et al. 2009), but point out another statistical error (see below) in their latest letter. However, more important than these statistical errors, we question their continued attribution of hazard to a protein rather than, more accurately, to poor prey or host quality. We believe this is an error in logic. Therefore, we strongly oppose the latest statement by Andow and Lovei (2012) that their conclusions of detectable nonzero effects of Cry proteins on nontarget organisms were “… criticized by Shelton et al. (2009a, b) on statistical grounds.” They missed the point again. Our primary criticism then and now is that they continue to ignore prey and host-quality effects and the ecological context in their effort to inform risk assessment. Besides the fault in logic of ignoring prey or host quality, we also take issue with the statement in their latest letter (Andow and Lovei 2012): “We conclude not that there could have been type II error, but that there has been type II error.” Given the nature of …

Letter - Response to 'How to protect general practice from child protection'

The bad news is that the BJGP published under such a negative and provocative title without balanced debate, in contrast to the recent BMJ head-to-head debate 'Has child protection become a form of madness'.1,2 One interesting comparison made in that debate is that Sweden and Finland spend 50% more of their gross domestic product on children and families than we do in the UK, we spend 200% more than they do on social problems. In my view these figures help us understand societal attitudes that have knock-on effects through all services for children and families including general practice. The current UK GP contract is certainly not child and family friendly and it is unlikely that current NHS changes will improve matters.Mike Fitzpatrick's latest letter over-emphasises the personal while flagging up the real difficulties for general practice.3 My work as a frontline GP and my statutory role as a named doctor for safeguarding children allows me to understand these difficulties, and indeed the importance of making vulnerable adults safe that he highlights in the same Journal.4The good news is that the great majority of children grow up well and happy in their families and GP practices support them in this. I emphasise this when delivering safeguarding training to GPs. In doing this work GPs can develop a sense of why something is going wrong. With appropriate use of their knowledge, skills, and information, GPs can address the needs of children and their families across the spectrum of vulnerability and need through to abuse and neglect. There is no question that this is challenging, but in the UK all professionals are obliged by statute to fulfil our professional roles and responsibilities. Those specific to general practice are on pages 60-63 of Working Together to Safeguard Children 2012.5GP colleagues in Cornwall show appreciation of the importance of safeguarding, but many feel there is too much guidance and insufficient resources. The majority of the practices value the RCGP/NSPCC Toolkit for Safeguarding Adults and Young People, that being written for GPs by GPs helps practices establish policies and procedures on safeguarding which work.6 I commend the RCGP for grasping the safeguarding nettle, collaborating with the NSPCC to produce this toolkit, and including safeguarding as one of the ten priorities of the RCGP Child Health Strategy for 2012-15.7 Can the BJGP help the College bring this strategy forward? Up to 25% of our patients are children. They are the future of the UK.

"The Sylph of Ullswater," or the "Bluestocking Monster"

In 1825, at age of twenty two, Sara Coleridge completed essay On Disadvantages Resulting from Possession of Beauty. The subject was one with which was painfully acquainted, and while wrote it as private working-out of set of social contradictions to which was subject, essay nonetheless reads like an early intervention in development of normative standards for female Since was sixteen, Sara had been recognized as Despite being safely ensconced in Southey household in Greta Hall, had nonetheless had London debut in 1818--as work of art. The previous summer, painter William Collins had visited Keswick, and Sara had been persuaded to sit for portrait as Wordsworth's Highland Girl. The canvas was shown at Royal Academy to enthusiastic reviews. The picture's subject, matter, unaffected beauty of country girl set amidst rugged Lakeland scenery, proved winning combination and Sara suddenly became famous natural beauty. Some of epithets used to describe included Flower of Lakes, the Sylph of Ullswater, and Beauty of Buttermere. The iconography of Sara was complex; was an aesthetic object, a form of compacted light, not of and blood, as one reviewer had it (quoted in Jones 202), but fascination for Cambridge students who began to include on their list of beautiful and picturesque prospects to visit while touring Lakes was decidedly of flesh and blood variety, if not openly carnal. The painting played directly on picturesque taste with its juxtaposition of wild, obscure mountain scenery (all indistinct brooding clouds and rocky crags), and serene, ethereally beautiful girl on verge of womanhood. This public attention translated into immediate changes in summer social life at Greta Hall, as Southeys accommodated groups of visiting tourists. Dennis Low makes excellent point that assumption that Sara grew up socially isolated in Keswick doesn't bear scrutiny when these summer seasons are taken into account. He quotes late letter to daughter Edith describing frantic round of boating, pic-nic-ing, Lea-drinking, carpet-hop-dancing (Low 106). Her mother feared would grow vain. The other activity, besides this gay round, that occupied Sara as precocious sixteen year old could not have been more different. She began work on translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer's Latin trealise, Historia de Abiponibus, an account of Paraguayan horse culture. This project ted to three-volume An Account of Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, published in 1821 when was just eighteen. Critics often underplay this publication by pointing out elements of chance that led to its creation: task was intended for Derwent as means to defray College costs; she, as better classicist, offered to help; when Derwent begged off because he was too occupied with his post as tutor, asked if might continue. Sarah Fricker Coleridge described process in letter to Tom Poole, including Southey's tentative approval of scheme with proviso that: she not be disappointed if nothing was gained by it, and not work too hard (quoted in Low 107). Mrs Coleridge didn't share Southey's concern, reassuring Poole that he must not imagine that Sara's health has suffered from too intense application to this work, for I am happy to say, is at present in better health than I have ever known her (Low 107). In other words, intellectual labour was source of physical vigour, not danger to it. In his account of story'. Low disturbs critical consensus that Southey's attitude demonstrated an ingrained misogyny. He makes excellent point that Southey's advice reflected state of market for translated works, and poor financial return for translators. He also notes that Southey's concern that project might prove overtaxing was extended equally to Derwent, although this point seems less persuasive, given that concern for Derwent was based on his being consumed by his teaching duties, whereas Southey was clearly worried about Sara's delicate constitution (Low 107-8). …