CHRISTINE GERRARD
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198183884
- eISBN:
- 9780191714122
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183884.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter discusses the making of the Hillarian Circle from 1720 to 1723. In 1720, Hill began to invest nearly all his emotional and intellectual energies into the circle of young male and female ...
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This chapter discusses the making of the Hillarian Circle from 1720 to 1723. In 1720, Hill began to invest nearly all his emotional and intellectual energies into the circle of young male and female writers he began to gather round him, a literary coterie dubbed the ‘Hillarian Circle’ after the name bestowed on him by one of his admirers, the novelist and dramatist Eliza Haywood. Hill and Haywood wrote a series of poems in praise of each other's talents. Like much of the coterie verse written by individual members of the Hillarian Circle, these poems evidently circulated in manuscript several years before they eventually found their way into print. Martha Fowke later displaced Haywood as the female luminary of the Hillarian Circle, a poet whose writing mediated between older courtly traditions of coterie writing and the new commercial world of publication to which Haywood belonged.Less
This chapter discusses the making of the Hillarian Circle from 1720 to 1723. In 1720, Hill began to invest nearly all his emotional and intellectual energies into the circle of young male and female writers he began to gather round him, a literary coterie dubbed the ‘Hillarian Circle’ after the name bestowed on him by one of his admirers, the novelist and dramatist Eliza Haywood. Hill and Haywood wrote a series of poems in praise of each other's talents. Like much of the coterie verse written by individual members of the Hillarian Circle, these poems evidently circulated in manuscript several years before they eventually found their way into print. Martha Fowke later displaced Haywood as the female luminary of the Hillarian Circle, a poet whose writing mediated between older courtly traditions of coterie writing and the new commercial world of publication to which Haywood belonged.
CHRISTINE GERRARD
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198183884
- eISBN:
- 9780191714122
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183884.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter discusses the breaking of the Hillarian Circle from 1723 to 1725. The relationship between Aaron Hill and Martha Fowke, with the literary name ‘Clio’, developed in 1721. Their ...
More
This chapter discusses the breaking of the Hillarian Circle from 1723 to 1725. The relationship between Aaron Hill and Martha Fowke, with the literary name ‘Clio’, developed in 1721. Their relationship was initiated by, and conducted through, acts of letter writing. It was a real-life epistolary intimacy inspired by a semi-fictional epistolary intimacy. Hill fell in love with ‘Clio’ as a literary voice before seeing her in the flesh. Hill and Fowke maintained a passionate epistolary correspondence throughout 1721 and 1722. By the time Clio was written in October 1723, the relationship was at an end. Eliza Haywood, a hardworking professional author, dismissed Fowke as a literary dilletante who had to bribe booksellers to publish her work. Members of Hill's circle were united in their condemnation of Haywood.Less
This chapter discusses the breaking of the Hillarian Circle from 1723 to 1725. The relationship between Aaron Hill and Martha Fowke, with the literary name ‘Clio’, developed in 1721. Their relationship was initiated by, and conducted through, acts of letter writing. It was a real-life epistolary intimacy inspired by a semi-fictional epistolary intimacy. Hill fell in love with ‘Clio’ as a literary voice before seeing her in the flesh. Hill and Fowke maintained a passionate epistolary correspondence throughout 1721 and 1722. By the time Clio was written in October 1723, the relationship was at an end. Eliza Haywood, a hardworking professional author, dismissed Fowke as a literary dilletante who had to bribe booksellers to publish her work. Members of Hill's circle were united in their condemnation of Haywood.
Christine Gerrard
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198183884
- eISBN:
- 9780191714122
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183884.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
During his lifetime Aaron Hill was one of the most lively cultural patrons and brokers on the London literary scene — an image hard to square with the company of undistinguished scribblers to which ...
More
During his lifetime Aaron Hill was one of the most lively cultural patrons and brokers on the London literary scene — an image hard to square with the company of undistinguished scribblers to which Pope relegated him in the Dunciad. This book aims to correct the distorted picture of the Augustan cultural scene which Pope passed down to posterity. Hill deliberately confronted Pope in his attempt to free poetry's sublime and visionary potential from the stale platitudes of neo-classical convention. An early champion of women poets, he also enjoyed close relationships with Eliza Haywood and Martha Fowke, and brought his three writing daughters Urania, Astrea, and Minerva into close contact with his lifelong friend the novelist Samuel Richardson. In 1711 Hill, as stage manager and librettist, introduced Handel to the English stage, as well as lobbying tirelessly for innovation in the 18th-century theatre. His entrepreneurial energies, directed at both commercial and cultural projects, mirror the zeitgeist of early Hanoverian Britain.Less
During his lifetime Aaron Hill was one of the most lively cultural patrons and brokers on the London literary scene — an image hard to square with the company of undistinguished scribblers to which Pope relegated him in the Dunciad. This book aims to correct the distorted picture of the Augustan cultural scene which Pope passed down to posterity. Hill deliberately confronted Pope in his attempt to free poetry's sublime and visionary potential from the stale platitudes of neo-classical convention. An early champion of women poets, he also enjoyed close relationships with Eliza Haywood and Martha Fowke, and brought his three writing daughters Urania, Astrea, and Minerva into close contact with his lifelong friend the novelist Samuel Richardson. In 1711 Hill, as stage manager and librettist, introduced Handel to the English stage, as well as lobbying tirelessly for innovation in the 18th-century theatre. His entrepreneurial energies, directed at both commercial and cultural projects, mirror the zeitgeist of early Hanoverian Britain.
Lisa L. Moore, Joanna Brooks, and Caroline Wigginton (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199743483
- eISBN:
- 9780190252830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199743483.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature, Women's Literature
As a young woman, Martha Fowke Sansom was fascinated with seventeenth-century French novels that celebrated Platonic love. She wrote her first love poems for her father’s mistresses and published ...
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As a young woman, Martha Fowke Sansom was fascinated with seventeenth-century French novels that celebrated Platonic love. She wrote her first love poems for her father’s mistresses and published several of them beginning in 1711. In 1720, Sansom published Epistles of Clio and Strephon, a romantic poetic correspondence with a man named William Bond. At the age of 34, she wrote her autobiography, Clio: or, a Secret History of the Life and Amours of the Late Celebrated Mrs. S-n—m. Written by Herself, in a Letter to Hillarius. Many of Sansom’s love poems were addressed to her lover Nicholas Hope who lived in Barbados. This chapter features one of Sansom’s poems, “On being charged with Writing incorrectly” (1710).Less
As a young woman, Martha Fowke Sansom was fascinated with seventeenth-century French novels that celebrated Platonic love. She wrote her first love poems for her father’s mistresses and published several of them beginning in 1711. In 1720, Sansom published Epistles of Clio and Strephon, a romantic poetic correspondence with a man named William Bond. At the age of 34, she wrote her autobiography, Clio: or, a Secret History of the Life and Amours of the Late Celebrated Mrs. S-n—m. Written by Herself, in a Letter to Hillarius. Many of Sansom’s love poems were addressed to her lover Nicholas Hope who lived in Barbados. This chapter features one of Sansom’s poems, “On being charged with Writing incorrectly” (1710).