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Lesbian Poet Herstory Page Manager:
Trish Shields
bard@subee.com
Please contact Trish
with your questions or suggestions for
this section.
Elsa Gidlow
Audre Lorde
Hilda Doolittle
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Under the able
direction of poet/novelist Trish Shields,
these pages of Just About Write will introduce Lesbian
poets from
the past, a little
about their herstories, and a sampling of their works.
These women were pioneers, and
they left a remarkable legacy for
us all. We urge you
to take the time to learn something about them
and their lasting
impressions of life, love, and the world around us.
Katherine Bradley 1846-1914
Edith Cooper 1862-1913
Writing as Michael Field
Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper wrote for twenty-five
years under
the pseudonym, Michael Field, producing numerous poetic historical
dramas and eight volumes of verse. Both women were daughters of Irish
Birmingham merchant families, born in 1846 and 1862 respectively.
Because of their social standing, they were as well educated as any 19th
century women could be.
Katherine attended Newham, a Cambridge
College, and wrote The New
Minnesinger in 1875 under the pseudonym, Arran Leigh. She had raised
her niece, Edith Cooper, who was a published poet as well, having
published her first work in 1871 at the tender age of 13. They became
emotionally closer as the years went by and began to write poetry
together as Arran and Isla Leigh. Their works were compared to the
published love poems Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
wrote to each other. As their popularity rose, they decided to write
under the new pseudonym, Michael Field. Their letters to one another
spoke of love and devotion and were published as a collection of verse
called Underneath The Bough, by Vale Press, in 1893.
As Michael Field, the two women attracted
the attention of Robert
Browning and W.B. Yeats. When questioned about the need to write under
an assumed name, Katherine Bradley told Browning that society would
never accept a poet who wrote about the sexual love between two women.
Feeling more comfortable under the disguise, both she and her niece
were able to portray women in a more realistic light, even though it
was presumably from a male's point of view. They also wrote and
championed women's rights throughout their lives when it was very
dangerous to do so.
The two women embraced Catholicism in
1907 and thereafter only wrote
devotional poetry until their deaths, Katherine in 1914 and Edith a
year earlier. Both women died from cancer.
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According
to Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies
at the University of Delaware: “After many years of neglect,
these two writers are being studied all around the world. People find
them fascinating, because they broke every rule in sight. In the late
19th century, women weren't supposed to attend universities, but the
‘Michael Fields’ did. Women weren't supposed to be authorities
on the Greek Classics, but these two women were. Respectable women
weren't supposed to have anything to do with the stage, but they wrote
plays and had one of their works produced. English Protestants weren't
supposed to be attracted to other religions, but they both converted
to Roman Catholicism. And, women certainly weren't supposed to love
each other passionately, but they did.” |
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More poetry from these two women can be found here, although sadly,
most has been lost over time:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/englit/victorian/HTML/maids_no.html
http://www.uoguelph.ca/englit/victorian/HTML/cyclamen.html
More information can be found here:
www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/ 2004/mfield021704.html
It
was deep April
It was deep April, and the
morn
Shakespere was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers evermore,
To laugh and dream on Lethe's shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgement never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Whoe never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
Continually
With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.
Constancy
I love her with the seasons, with the winds,
As the stars worship, as anemones
Shudder in secret for the sun, as bees
Buzz round an open flower: in all kinds
My love is perfect, and in each she finds
Herself the goal: then why, intent to teaze
And rob her delicate spirit of its ease,
Hastes she to range me with inconstant minds?
If she should die, if I were left at large
On earth without her-I, on earth, the same
Quick mortal with a thousand cries, her spell
She fears would break. And I confront the charge
As sorrowing, and as careless of my fame
As Christ intact before the infidel.
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