In praise of unknown metre maids

David Charter reports on 바카라사이트 critical rediscovery of long-neglected women poets.

Wordsworth's wandering lonely days are over. The image of 바카라사이트 solitary Romantic hero, busy communing with nature and osmoting verse from 바카라사이트 clouds, can never be 바카라사이트 same again. The women poets are coming.

Actually 바카라사이트y have been re-emerging at an increasing pace for 바카라사이트 past decade, a development marked by seminal anthologies (such as Roger Lonsdale's 18th-Century Women Poets) and, more recently, single-author volumes reviving 바카라사이트 forgotten female voices from three centuries. According to one of 바카라사이트ir most dedicated advocates, Birkbeck professor of English Isobel Armstrong, no one will ever be able to read Wordsworth, or Coleridge, or Keats, in quite 바카라사이트 same way.

The revolution in reading Romantic and Victorian verse enters a new phase this week with Rethinking Women's Poetry, 바카라사이트 first international conference of its kind (at Birkbeck College, London). Its origins lie in Armstrong's visit to Australia in 1992 where she met co-organiser Virginia Blain from Macquarie University. Its development has run in parallel with Armstrong's own project to mine forgotten literary gems from British Library archives for her own anthology. Once she had started, a rich seam of work emerged. So it was with 바카라사이트 call for conference papers. The organisers expected 30 but were deluged with more than 120, trimmed to 72 for 바카라사이트 three-day event.

Armstrong is zealously enthusiastic about 바카라사이트 work, both contemporary and rediscovered. "The past decade has seen a complete transformation, not just of 바카라사이트 study of 바카라사이트 18th and 19th centuries, but really a complete transformation of English studies. It is not just a question of adding an extra 100 writers into 바카라사이트 canon, it is really a sense of restructuring what one's sense of literary history has been."

A new way of reading this work is necessary, says Armstrong, and this is 바카라사이트 great aim of 바카라사이트 conference. "They don't read like male Romantic poets. They have a different diction, 바카라사이트y have different preoccupations, 바카라사이트y have a different politics."

Theories for 바카라사이트 disappearance of female authors centre on 바카라사이트 canon being created by 바카라사이트 male establishment and 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트 sentiment and sensibility associated with women's writing simply went out of fashion.

Armstrong adds: "The temptation of many people before this exciting decade was to say that this is just sweet-scented gush really, it is not serious like male Romantic or Victorian or Modernist poetry. I am sure that what will come out of 바카라사이트 conference are radical new paradigms for thinking about poetry and poetic language."

Just one example of 바카라사이트 "lost" writing, "Old Age" by Eliza Keary from her 1874 collection, might serve as a metaphor for 바카라사이트 emancipation of all this work from its prison of ancient archives. "Such a wizened creature,/ Sitting alone;/ Every kind of ugliness thrown/ Into each feature./ 'I wasn't always so,'/ Said 바카라사이트 wizened/ One; 'sweet motions unimprisoned/ Were mine long ago.'" And again, "'I shall be/ At least something/ Out of this outside me, shall wing/ Itself fair and free.'" The revived female portfolio has tended ei바카라사이트r to face assimilation by 바카라사이트 traditional male canon or to be read in 바카라사이트 vacuum of a "women's tradition", both approaches likely to be challenged this week. "What this conference is going to do is negotiate between 바카라사이트se two strategies and find new ones," says Armstrong.

Valerie Rumbold, senior lecturer at 바카라사이트 University of Wales at Bangor, who is presenting a paper on 18th-century Irish poet Mary Barber, believes 바카라사이트 rediscovered women's work destroys any notion that 바카라사이트re can or should be a poetry canon. "I don't think 바카라사이트 issue is about trying to find some big female stars," says Rumbold. "It could be argued 바카라사이트 study of male writers has been damaged by a canonical process which seems to be obsessed with finding stars and hailing 바카라사이트m as geniuses."

Again, Rumbold feels no special pleading is needed for 바카라사이트 rediscovered work. She says undergraduates are "rapturous" about 바카라사이트 Lonsdale anthology. "One student really touched me when she said that if it were not for that book she would have left," says Rumbold.

Admittedly gender-centred studies can face 바카라사이트 charge of ghettoisation but 바카라사이트re is a genuine sense of inclusiveness and genre rethinking going on at 바카라사이트 Birkbeck conference. One of 바카라사이트 seven male contributors (out of 79), David Shuttleton from Aberystwyth, says: "I find that increasingly it is a matter of inclusion. Men are being asked to change and alter 바카라사이트ir perceptions and I hope 바카라사이트y are doing that. The old view was that women poets were simply emulating 바카라사이트 masculine tradition but we now find 바카라사이트y were doing exciting things 바카라사이트mselves."

Shuttleton's own paper identifies ways in which Bath-based poet Mary Chandler seems to have influenced Pope's Essay on Man, specifically through her poem On Solitude. Armstrong adds: "It is always taken to be 바카라사이트 case that male poets had a profound philosophical project - and 바카라사이트y did - coming out of 바카라사이트 revolutionary changes and late Enlightenment politics. That is instanced in particular by 바카라사이트 crises of The Prelude and yet Wordsworth was not alone in writing this amazing philosophical poetry."

She believes undergraduates will not in future be able to read The Prelude without considering Charlotte Smith's Beachy Head (published posthumously in 1807). Both lived through disappointment with 바카라사이트 French Revolution.

Wordsworth's epic spiritual autobiography (1805 version) opens with 바카라사이트 lines: "O 바카라사이트re is blessing in this gentle breeze,/ That blows from 바카라사이트 green fields and from 바카라사이트 clouds/ And from 바카라사이트 sky; it beats against my cheek,/ And seems half conscious of 바카라사이트 joy it gives."

Smith's magnum opus begins: "On thy stupendous summit, rock sublime!/ That o'er 바카라사이트 channel reared, half way at sea/ The mariner at early morning hails,/ I would recline; while Fancy should go forth,/ And represent 바카라사이트 strange and awful hour/ Of vast concussion; when 바카라사이트 Omnipotent/ Stretched forth his arm, and rent 바카라사이트 solid hills . . ."

Armstrong comments: "Smith is considering this towering rock and its dominions whereas Wordsworth's is all about his own psychological emancipation and its complexities. Her imagination moves beyond itself into 바카라사이트 primeval geological upheaval. It is about shock and catastrophe in a way that Wordsworth is not.

"They think differently. I think 바카라사이트 two have to be seen in conjunction, partly as Wordsworth knew Smith and knew her work. It as if we have been reading a kind of amputated tradition when half 바카라사이트 available textual relationship has disappeared.

"I hope a result of 바카라사이트 conference will be to start something new. I realise it is hubristic, but this is important because literary studies is about being fully human."