Debating Women: Arguments in Verse - Essay Example

Mary Leapor Introduction on the Mary Leapor (1722-1746) Mary was born into a working family in Northamptonshire, in central England. Herfather was a gardener. There was very little money and so she did not have much education and became a kitchen maid. In spite of this Mary was a very keen writer, and tried to educate herself using the libraries of her employers or the few books she could buy. When she was looking after her widowed father she met Bridget Freemantle (1698-1779) and this older, educated woman helped to get Mary’s poetry published.

Unfortunately Mary Leapor died at the age of 24 from measles. She had been very worried about her sick father and it was Bridget Freemantle who ensured that her work was passed on to supporters who included Elizabeth Montagu, Mary Delany (1700-1788) and the novelist Sarah Scott (1720-1795). The sale of the poems was intended to provide income for her father. Mary Leapor’s writings were enjoyed by well educated people because they thought that she represented a natural and unspoiled poetic style, and this was refreshing after some of the highly artificial works of some poets in that period.

Overview of the poem “An Epistle to A Lady.” The form of the poem looks very similar to the work of the major male writers of the time such as Alexander Pope. This can be seen in the title, which sets the scene as a letter communication between one person and another. Usually an “Epistle to A Lady” would be from a man to a woman, declaring some aspect of his romantic love, but in this case it is from one woman to another. The subject matter is the sad knowledge that the author is sick and likely to die very soon.

There is a fixed rhyme scheme called the “heroic couplet” and many words are written with capital letters which gives the poem a solemn and scholarly tone. The poem appears to be operating on two levels: a formal style based on classical and historical figures, astronomy and religious texts and a much more informal style through homely references to everyday things. The author calls herself “your luckless Mira” which suggests a close friendship with the “Lady” mentioned in the title, who is probably her mentor Bridget Freemantle.

The use of names like Tycho and Copernicus, famous astronomers, is ironic, because in fact the poem goes on to talk about how pointless all their learning is, when someone is facing death. The movement of the planets in the heavens cannot influence the author: “I find no comfort from their Systems flow”.Parts of the poem seem to criticize poetry itself which is depicted as “painted parlours” or “soft visions” and this contrasts with the author’s return “to Business and to Woes/ to sweep her Kitchen, and to mend her Clothes”.

By capitalizing these very ordinary words the author betrays a kind of bitterness, mocking tendency of other poets to glorify some aspects of life, while she must deal with hard work. In a similar way there is personification in the line “But see pale Sickness with her languid Eyes…” which imitates the tales of virtues, vices, gods and goddesses of classical poetry. Death is idealized in a lot of the literary works of the time, but Mary Leapor tells it as it really is. She imagines herself after death “Afraid and shiv’ring at the doubtful Way” and the ending she emphasizes how she is just one person among many, and that death is nothing special in the world: “And the same Day that Mira yields her Breath, / Thousands may enter through the Gates of Death”.

This is bleak and honest, with no fancy words for a picturesque Greek or Roman, or even Christian, afterlife. What the poem shows is that powerful imagery need not be the taken from learned books and dressed up in fancy language. There is pathos and tragedy in the death of one insignificant woman, and as she writes to her friend she conveys very subtly her gratitude and thanks for all that her friend has done for her: “And when each Joy, when each lov’d Object flies / Be you the last that leaves my closing Eyes.

” The honesty and understatement of this love, combined with the knowledge that the poet really was dying at the time, makes this a very moving piece of writing. References M. H. Abrams, ed. “Mary Leapor.” Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton and Company, 2000.Lonsdale, Roger. Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. pp. 194-195.Rogers, Katherine M. “The Situation of Women.” Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982.