Charlotte Mew

Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was a Victorian lesbian poet who, born in London, was neither formally educated, nor was she particularly literary. In spite of this, she wrote elegiac, passionate poetry, her best deemed to be the form of dramatic monologues, and her melancholy tone may be the result of the tragedies she went through from a young age. She lost most of her siblings, three out of four brothers, who died unfortunately in childhood. Henry, her older brother, “began to show signs of mental breakdown” 1, followed later on by her sister Freda, who, when she demonstrated similar symptoms, was put into an asylum.

The history of mental instability in Mew’s family, as well as the social stigma surrounding mental illnesses during this time period, which “warned against procreation by the unfit” 2, for fear of passing on mental illnesses, contributes to one of the reasons that Charlotte did not consider the possibility of marriage, and she and Anne, her sister, both vowed not to marry. Mew primarily wrote short stories, and only undertook poetry later in her life, when she was already in her forties. However, though she did not enlighten others with details about her family history, and particularly the medical conditions of her siblings, she touches on this topic instead through her poetry, insanity being one of the themes she writes about, such as in ‘On the Asylum Road’.

Mew attended the Gower Street School, and this was where she became “passionately attached to the headmistress, Lucy Harrison”.3 This was the first of many female sexual love interests for Charlotte, and she was “attracted to clever, strong-minded women”, however, disappointingly for Mew, this feeling was unrequited throughout her life.

In 1902, it was Ella D’...

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... Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English [Pg.354]. Oxford University Press, 1994.

10. Jeredith Merrin, “The Ballad of Charlotte Mew” – Modern Philogy, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Nov. 1997) [Pg. 212]. The University of Chicago Press. Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/438989

11. Angela Leighton & Margaret Reynolds, Victorian Women Poets – An Anthology [Pg. 645]. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995.

12. Angela Leighton & Margaret Reynolds, Victorian Women Poets – An Anthology [Pg. 646]. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995.

13. Bonnie Kime Scott, The Gender of Modernism – A Critical Anthology [Pg.318]. Indiana University Press, 1990.

14. Bonnie Kime Scott, The Gender of Modernism – A Critical Anthology [Pg.320]. Indiana University Press, 1990.

15. Angela Leighton & Margaret Reynolds, Victorian Women Poets – An Anthology [Pg. 646]. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995.