Mary Collier and working-class voices in romantic poetry

Romantic Poetry

The term romanticism related to a period of European history associated with the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Romantic poetry is an expression of the period, the emphasis of such poetry was frequently nature as well as individual expression of emotions and imagination as a rejection of earlier classicism and strict social rules and conventions that defined life, prior to the time. In a sense romantic poetry, as well as other literary and artistic expressions during the period were a clear demand for social justice, expressing that the past social structure was to rigid and the new social order must allow for individual growth. The movement stressed that all decisions about one's future should be made not on lineage but ability and that people should be allowed to act and express individual feelings of say love, as a natural outgrowth of their position in nature. The romantic poet could be anyone, though there is a cannon of classics that dictate those who the world believed expressed the movement best, and they are clearly not self educated men. The irony being that the canon of the movement is still defined by social strata. This work will argue that some of the best examples of romantic poetry were produced by unlikely souls from very low places, the best example that this writer can find among them being the working class poet, Mary Collier.

To come to terms with a strict sense of the time it coincided with the industrial revolution, as more and more social norms were being challenged by changes in individual economics. It would seem to some, strange to associate romanticism with economics but the events were simultaneous and it took the need of many to reevaluate their individual and collective place in the world to redefine the cultural as well as the economic.

A it is evident that, in the poetry of this period, though much of it lacks the perfectness of form of the world's great masterpieces, the imagination, in its fullness and its freedom, is working nobly, creating great beauty of a distinctive kind,... It is conquering new fields in interpreting the mind of man. Of a distinctive kind,-- so that one would recognize always a certain type as a product of this era, which differs from other so-called romantic eras, in its power of probing the experience of the individual soul, piercing to the inner world.

Sherwood 8-9)

There is also from this period a clear sense that the romantic notion, as an impetus for change is cyclical, just as conservatism is cyclical. It would therefore seem logical to broaden the definition of romantic to one that includes the individual demand for social change, and especially with regard to the rights of the individual of self-expression, almost regardless of surroundings and station. It is for this reason that I argue that some of the best examples of romantic poetry, actually came from the minds of the most unlikely individuals and are rarely included in the canon of "romantic literature." Though they were contemporary to Keats and Wordsworth, they were working class and self educated. The period of thought was open to more than just the traditional aristocratic upper class, with time on their hands, it spurned thought expression through the pen all over the social strata. In the words of Wordsworth the great romantic poet

The end of Poetry', he says, 'is to produce excitement in co-existence with an overbalance of pleasure; but, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of mind; ideas and feelings do not, in that state, succeed each other in accustomed order. If the words, however, by which this excitement is produced be in themselves powerful, or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of pain... "metre, which alone distinguishes poetry from prose, is a device for sparing the reader pain, an anodyne, a soothing syrup! Poetry probes deep, excites pain; it must be thrown back into a 'sort of half-consciousness."

Lonsdale 171)

There are two specific examples of Mary Colier's poems that bring to mind the ideals of the romantic period, as well as the nature of the artistic freedom that was stressed by the era.

A from the Woman's Labour. An Epistle to Mr. Stephen Duck

The Washerwoman]

WHEN bright Orion glitters in the skies

In winter nights, then early we must rise;

The weather ne'er so bad, wind, rain or snow,

Our work appointed, we must rise and go,

While you on easy beds may lie and sleep,

Till light does through your chamber-windows peep.

When to the house we come where we should go,

How to get in, alas! we do not know:

The maid quite tired with work the day before,

O'ercome with sleep; we standing at the door,

Oppressed with cold, and often call in vain,

Ere to our work we can admittance gain.

But when from wind and weather we get in,

Briskly with courage we our work begin;

Heaps of fine linen we before us view,

Whereon to lay our strength and patience too;

Cambrics and muslins, which our ladies wear,

Laces and edgings, costly, fine and rare,

Which must be washed with utmost skill and care;

With holland shirts, ruffles and fringes too,

Fashions which our forefathers never knew.

For several hours here we work and slave,

Before we can one glimpse of daylight have;

We labour hard before the morning's past,

Because we fear the time runs on too fast.

At length bright Sol illuminates the skies,

And summons drowsy mortals to arise;

Then comes our mistress to us without fail,

And in her hand, perhaps, a mug of ale

To cheer our hearts, and also to inform

Herself what work is done that very morn;

Lays her commands upon us, that we mind

Her linen well, nor leave the dirt behind.

Not this alone, but also to take care

We don't her cambrics nor her ruffles tear;

And these most strictly does of us require,

To save her soap and sparing be of fire;

Tells us her charge is great, nay furthermore,

Her clothes are fewer than the time before.

Now we drive on, resolved our strength to try,

And what we can we do most willingly;

Until with heat and work, 'tis often known,

Not only sweat but blood runs trickling down

Our wrists and fingers: still our work demands

The constant action of our labouring hands.

Now night comes on, from whence you have relief,

But that, alas! does but increase our grief.

With heavy hearts we often view the sun,

Fearing he'll set before our work is done;

For, either in the morning or at night,

We piece the summer's day with candlelight.

Though we all day with care our work attend,

Such is our fate, we know not when 'twill end.

When evening's come, you homeward take your way;

We, till our work is done, are forced to stay,

And, after all our toil and labour past,

Sixpence or eightpence pays us off at last;

For all our pains no prospect can we see

Attend us, but old age and poverty. (1739)

Collier, opens the work with a clear romantic idea, placing the time of year within the naturalistic constellations overhead. She goes on to daftly express the pains that greet the working class woman at the rise of the winter's day, as well at the winter of her life. She is at the whim of those who wear, and expect care for frivolous items of clothing, so fine that the working class woman, should never posses. The work expresses with clear honesty the need to express, reality and pain, in Wordworthian values. The expression of the work is poignant and clear, as the washerwoman goes through the process of noticing nature, as a guide for time rather than as something she is able to explore at leisure. The woman and the poet explored leisure, in only those available times when she was not otherwise needed for work. There is a clear sense that even in the poet's golden years her sentiments changed little as she so effectively expressed the condition of her life, through the clear and present reality of necessity, better than many of her time. The romantic poet was given license to express pain, through individual self-expression, and this working class woman was not only not an exception but probably even more committed to the ideals of the period than many of the classic canon fodder. Even her life of letters was born of necessity, as she chose to learn to write so she would be able to remember her works, and not have to recite them to the publisher to have them create a lasting impression.