The Complete Poems of Anne Bannerman

706 Pages·2017·5.16 MB·English

Duquesne University
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Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Fall 1-1-2017
The Complete Poems of Anne Bannerman
Matthew Heilman
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THE COMPLETE POEMS OF ANNE BANNERMAN

A Dissertation
Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Duquesne University

In partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

By
Matthew J. Heilman

December 2017
Copyright by
Matthew J. Heilman

2017
THE COMPLETE POEMS OF ANNE BANNERMAN

By

Matthew J. Heilman

Approved: November 6, 2017

________________________________
Susan K. Howard
Associate Professor of English
(Committee Chair)

________________________________ ________________________________
Anna Gibson Daniel P. Watkins
Assistant Professor of English Professor Emeritus
(Committee Member) (Committee Member)

________________________________ ________________________________
James Swindal, Ph.D. Greg Barnhisel
Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, English Department
School of Liberal Arts Professor

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ABSTRACT

THE COMPLETE POEMS OF ANNE BANNERMAN

By
Matthew J. Heilman
December 2017

Dissertation supervised by Susan K. Howard
Anne Bannerman (c.1780-1829) spent most of her life in Edinburgh, Scotland and published
three volumes of poetry in the early nineteenth century. For my dissertation, I have prepared the
first fully-annotated critical edition of Bannerman’s complete works, including Poems (1800),
Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802), and Poems, A New Edition (1807). A comprehensive
introduction provides information on Bannerman’s life and background, and examines her work
in the context of British Romanticism, the Gothic, Scottish nationalism, and the ballad tradition.
Close-readings of the poems examine the ways in which Bannerman’s female narrators challenge
early nineteenth-century conceptualizations of gender, particularly in regard to her depictions of
vengeful femme fatale figures. Poems such as “The Spirit of the Air,” “The Mermaid,” “The
Dark Ladie,” and “The Penitent’s Confession” feature female characters invested with
supernatural powers, which enable them to harness occult forces, manipulate the natural
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elements, or return from the grave to punish those responsible for their deaths. Other poems
such as “The Nun,” “The Murcian Cavalier,” and Bannerman’s melancholy sonnets highlight the
limited choices afforded to women throughout history and include sharp critiques of the Catholic
Church, the chivalric code, and the institution of marriage. A handful of political poems
condemn Great Britain’s involvement in the Napoleonic Wars and highlight the effects of war
upon the lives of widows, mothers, and veterans. In addition to her own poems, Bannerman was
also an accomplished translator of French and Italian, and her translations of Francesco Petrarch,
Antonio Allamanni, Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and others are examined alongside a sonnet-cycle
inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Finally, the
edition features an appendix comprised of critical reviews, letters, and selections of poetry and
prose from William Collins, Charlotte Smith, Joanna Baillie, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew
Lewis, Sir Walter Scott, and others. The edition also includes a list of textual variants for the
material collected in Poems, A New Edition, an index of first lines, a bibliography, and four
illustrations from the original edition of Tales of Superstition and Chivalry.
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DEDICATION

To the memory and accomplishments of Anne Bannerman.

Your seraph-strains, unpitying, destroy…
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ..................................................................................................................................................... v

Introduction................................................................................................................................................ viii
Literary and Cultural Context: Romanticism & the Gothic............................................................. x
Life, Biography, and Background ................................................................................................. xvi
Bannerman and Scottish Nationalism ...................................................................................... xxxvii
Poems ........................................................................................................................................... xliv
Tales of Superstition and Chivalry ............................................................................................. xcix
Poems, A New Edition.............................................................................................................. clxxiii
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ cxciii

A Note on the Texts .................................................................................................................................cxciv

Poems (1800) ............................................................................................................................................... 2
Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802) .............................................................................................. 108
Poems, A New Edition (1807) .................................................................................................................. 218

Textual Variants in Poems, A New Edition ............................................................................................... 402

Appendix A. “They Only May Be Said To Possess A Child…” .............................................................. 420

Appendix B. Critical Reviews
Poems (1800) ............................................................................................................................... 422
Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802) ................................................................................... 427

Appendix C. Letters and Correspondence
Joanna Baillie to Anne Bannerman (9 June 1800) ....................................................................... 432
Anna Seward to Thomas Park, Esq. (25 September 1800) .......................................................... 433
Anna Seward to Thomas Park, Esq. (5 January 1801) ................................................................. 435
Anne Grant to Mrs. Smith (7 September 1824) ........................................................................... 443
Anne Grant to Mrs. Smith (17 February 1830) ............................................................................ 445
Anne Grant to Miss Mercer (17 March 1830) ............................................................................. 446

Appendix D. Contemporary Poetry & Prose
William Collins, “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland” .................. 448
Edmund Burke, from A Philosophical Enquiry ........................................................................... 460
Charlotte Smith, from Elegiac Sonnets ........................................................................................ 461
Joanna Baillie, from “Introductory Discourse” ............................................................................ 469
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie” ..................................... 471
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Ballad of the Dark Ladie: A Fragment” ................................... 477
Matthew Gregory Lewis, “Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogene” ............................................... 480
William Preston, “An Epistle to Robert Anderson, M.D.” .......................................................... 484
Sir Walter Scott, from “Essays on Imitations of the Ancient Ballads” ........................................ 490

Index of First Lines ................................................................................................................................... 494

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 496
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Introduction

In 1830, Sir Walter Scott made the following observation in his “Essays on Imitations of
the Ancient Ballads,” which appeared in the fourth edition of his influential ballad collection
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border:
Miss Anne Bannerman likewise should not be forgotten, whose Tales of Superstition and
Chivalry appeared about 1802. They were perhaps too mystical and too abrupt; yet if it be
the purpose of this kind of ballad poetry powerfully to excite the imagination, without
pretending to satisfy it, few persons have succeeded better than this gifted lady, whose
volume is peculiarly fit to be read in a lonely house by a decaying lamp. (559)
Despite Scott’s endorsement of her work, Anne Bannerman was not remembered by the general
public, nor did she make a lasting impression on enthusiasts of Romantic poetry or Gothic
literature. After publishing two volumes of original poetry – Poems (1800) and Tales of
Superstition and Chivalry (1802) – Bannerman’s work fell into obscurity. In what appears to
have been an eleventh-hour attempt to secure herself a career as a professional writer,
Bannerman issued Poems, A New Edition by subscription in 1807. This volume included most of
the material from her first two publications as well as a handful of new or previously uncollected
poems. Unfortunately, Poems, A New Edition was not a success, forcing the already
impoverished poet to seek a more practical means of earning a living as a governess. Scott’s
survey of Scottish balladeers that have “honored their country” may have ranked Bannerman
alongside Robert Burns, John Leyden, and James Hogg, but she has been mostly forgotten by her
native country and is now barely a footnote in the history of Scotland’s rich literary tradition
(559).
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Yet Anne Bannerman was indeed a “gifted” poet. Her poetry engages with the same
philosophical questions posed by her more well-known Romantic contemporaries, and the
visionary scope of her poetry is as sublime as it is subversive. Her work complicates
longstanding critical tendencies to associate literary Gothicism exclusively with fiction, and to
treat it as a genre that evolved alongside but remained distinct from Romantic poetry.
Furthermore, Bannerman’s appropriation of Gothic motifs serves a specific and radical purpose.
Her impassioned narratives emphasize female empowerment through acts of vengeance,
amounting to a bold – even quasi-Satanic – deconstruction of culturally inscribed gender roles.
The ill-fated and victimized heroines in Bannerman’s poetry rarely turn the other cheek; instead
of forgiving their enemies, they endeavor to find ways to punish them.
Bannerman’s poetry is consistently thrilling, entertaining, atmospheric, and enjoyable.
All three of her volumes deserve further investigation from literary scholars. Her best and most
characteristic poems, such as “The Spirit of the Air,” “The Mermaid,” and “The Dark Ladie,”
have the potential to spark debate and generate valuable discussion in classrooms. As scholars
continue to reform and re-evaluate the literary canon in the future, Bannerman’s poems deserve
to be anthologized alongside the works of Charlotte Smith, Anna Barbauld, and Joanna Baillie,
as well as William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, and Walter Scott. This edition of
Bannerman’s poetry – the first and only complete collection of her work in over two hundred
years – is intended to honor as well as preserve this mysterious, powerful, and dissenting voice.
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