The Poems of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Turner Smith

Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) was the author of ten novels, a play, and a host of innovative educational books for children, as well as several volumes of poetry that helped set priorities and determine the tastes of the culture of early Romanticism. Her Elegiac Sonnets sparked the sonnet revival in English Romanticism; The Emigrants initiated its passion for lengthy meditative introspection; and Beachy Head lent its poetic engagement with nature a uniquely telling immediacy. Smith was a woman, Wordsworth remarked a quarter century after her death, "to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered." True to his prediction, Smith's poetry has virtually dropped from sight and thus from cultural consciousness. This, the first edition of Smith's collected poems, will restore to all students of English poetry a distinctive, compelling voice. Likewise, the recovery of Smith to her rightful place among the Romantic poets must spur
the reassessment of the place of women writers within that culture.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Romanticism, Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Charlotte Turner Smith was an English Romantic poet and novelist. She initiated a revival of the English sonnet, helped establish the conventions of Gothic fiction, and wrote political novels of sensibility.

Reviews

[Grace Harwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This edition of Charlotte Smith's poetry has been my constant companion for the past 15+ years since I first discovered Smith's poetry as an undergraduate at University. Smith first released her "Elegiac Sonnets and Other Essays by Charlotte Smith, of Bignor Park, Sussex" in 1784. By announcing herself to the world as such, she was simultaneously revealing that she was a lady of a certain class and that the reader could expect genteel effusions (which, indeed, they are). The truth, in reality, was very different, as Smith was incarcerated in Newgate at the time for debt along with her profligate husband, Benjamin Smith. Smith's sonnets rescued them from jail, and she would go on throughout the rest of her life to earn her living by her pen, writing novels, one play, several works for children and re-releasing the sonnets (with additions) every other year or so, just to keep the money rolling in.

So what can you expect from this poetry, given this background? You might expect it to be hurriedly thrown together in order to earn a quick quid. However, this could not be further from the truth. These are indeed truly beautiful pieces of poetry. Much of them are based around the South Downs area of England, which was where Smith was from. Indeed, Smith's South Downs are as evocative as Wordsworth's Lake District. She uses location and setting in an extremely effective manner, which brings these vignettes of poetry to life. Smith, as Curran argues in his excellent introduction to this book, was one of the first female poets which we might latterly call Romantic, and her poetry influenced a whole generation of those Romantic poets. In fact, Wordsworth acknowledged his debt to her in his poem "St Bees".

This is my favourite poem from the collection (and probably my favourite poem ever):

On being cautioned against walking on an headland
overlooking the sea, because it was frequented by a lunatic

Is there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-utter’d lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink
From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.

In a later edition of the poetry, Thomas Stoddard would provide engravings to go with her poetry, including a rather picturesque lunatic to go with this one.

This is a pretty complete edition of the poems, although the Pickering and Chatto edition has some previously uncollected works including the excellent "Untitled" which pays tribute to artist George Romney who sketched one of the very few pictures of Smith whilst she was staying at Eartham House with William Hayley and writing her most famous novel, The Old Manor House. However, the P&C edition is £400+, so this is much the more affordable of the two editions - plus Stuart Curran's introduction, background information and notes are excellent.

[Ellie Kidger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Charlotte Smith's sonnets. They are honestly a beautiful example of how sonnets can be used outside of love poetry and they are all so lovely to read. I also like her translation works, with the translations making them her own in a way I didn't know translations could be done.

[Valeddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beachy Head has its moments, but Christ it's a slog.

[Conorlu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the darkness of the poems

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It was nice reading from the Romantic period without it being on the Big Six- Smith’s poetry is beautiful.

[Abi Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read: Sonnet I, Sonnet V,Sonnet VIII, and Sonnet XXXII.

Emotive poems which both explicitly and implicitly underline the author’s life.

[Craig Franson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smith's poems are an acquired taste. They employ figures that are trite today and were already dated when she wrote, but when read together the poems from her sonnet cycle offset each other. The familiar becomes a way to offset the unfamiliar and set up a few unexpected turns. Also, comparisons that seems quite simple at first becomes a little more complex when you work through the implications of the representations used.

Overall, Smith is stronger with form than with language. She was responsible for the re-emergence of the sonnet, and turned it into a mark of genius by mastering the traditional forms and devising variations of her own. She also had cultural significance, paving the way for Romantic sadism by questioning the cathartic value of writing--suggesting that poetry made one suffer more deeply and that this was its value. With Smith, pain becomes art.

Few individual sonnets stand on their own, but some are worth serious rereading. 1, 2, 4, and 6 give a representative sampling of her representational strategies and set you up to make the most of the really great poems (most of which are about writing): 1 (again), 16, 36, 39, 44, 47, 48, 58, 77, and 84.

Of the longer poems "The Emigrants" (though a bit tedious) is worth reading for its historical significance (it's about refugee aristocrats during the French Revolution). "Beachy Head" on the other hand (which is comparable to the early "Two Part Prelude" of Wordsworth) is a powerful piece of writing that should be part of the Romantic cannon.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry, sad life story. I can't wait to read Ms. Smith's novels.