Textual Analysis: Charlotte Smith, The Emigrants (1793) (Lect. 31)
Charlotte Smith’s Life
Birth and Childhood
Born on 4 May 1749 in London, England, to Anna and Nicholas Turner, who was a prosperous landowner.
The family owned multiple properties, notably a townhouse in London and two substantial estates, which provided a comfortable upbringing.
Smith faced tragedy at an early age; her mother died in childbirth when Charlotte was just three years old, leaving a lasting impact on her emotional development.
After her father's departure abroad, she was raised together with her siblings by her maternal aunt, who fostered her literary inclinations and provided guidance during her formative years.
Youth and Marriage
From a young age, Charlotte developed a keen interest in literature, particularly reading and poetry, nurtured by her family's intellectual environment.
She began composing poems at approximately six or seven years old, a talent encouraged by her father’s appreciation of literature, and himself wrote poems.
Her father, who had remarried a wealthy woman in 1756, accepted an offer of marriage on Charlotte's behalf when she was fifteen. So she married Benjamin Smith, the 21-year-old son of a West India merchant and East India company director, on 23 February 1765; Benjamin was often neglectful and irresponsible with finances.
Over the course of their marriage, Charlotte gave birth to twelve children, from 1767 to 1785, an experience that influenced her writing and perspective on motherhood.
Between 1767 and 1785 Smith gave birth to twelve children. Although their family was growing, Benjamin Smith neglected his father's business, so Charlotte (she was also really good in French) had to assist her father-in-law with his business correspondence.
After her father-in-law's death, she increased her writing activity in order to maintain her children's social standing until they received their inheritance.
The marital relationship was strained, and Charlotte often took on responsibilities in business correspondence to manage household affairs due to her husband's shortcomings.
Time in Prison
not trusting his own son, the father-in-law left his properties not to him, but to his nephews. this caused financial distress because none of them were of age.
In December 1783, her husband was imprisoned for debts, and Charlotte chose to share his incarceration for seven months, showcasing her commitment to her family despite the difficulties. The law was extremely strict about debt.
During this challenging period, she successfully negotiated financial arrangements for his release, highlighting her resourcefulness and determination.
This time in prison proved to be a catalyst for her literary career; she published her first major work, Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Essays, in June 1784, which garnered significant success and established her as a notable voice in literature.
The formal choice of the (revisited) Petrarchan sonnet was a very daring one, as that form was traditionally a prerogative of male writers. That surprising success will give her the courage to begin publishing her prose works under her own name. she brought together both Elogy (about distress and unsatisfaction) and the Sonnets.
Mature Years
Upon returning home, the family settled in Sussex, following the death of three of her sons in 1788, Charlotte chose to separate from her husband as a means of seeking independence and stability for her remaining children. wife. The separation did not completely free Charlotte from Benjamin's actions or her financial demands as he long remained, as was customary at the time, legally the male figure of reference for publishers, since the woman writer could not claim the royalties of her works.
Despite personal struggles, she continued to support her family through writing, focusing primarily on novels that critiqued societal structures and the patriarchal norms of her time.
Charlotte settled down with her children in Brighton where she decided to devote herself to the more lucrative writing of novels in order to be able to financially support her numerous children (some oh which fought in the British-French war, and some immigrated to America). Between 1788 and 1798 she published ten novels in which she criticizes the legal system seen as an arbitrary machine of power, an expression of the legal code of a patriarchal society in which women are always involuntary victims.
In 1793, she published The Emigrants, which explored the plight of French exiles in England after the Revolution, reflecting her empathy and concern for social justice issues.
At the same time, she published the ambitious poem The Emigrants (1793), strongly influenced by William Cowper's poem, The Task, which Charlotte devotedly admired. The Emigrants deals with the sufferings of the many French exiles who had to leave their country during the French Revolution because of persecution. Smith herself felt persecuted and exiled in her own country because of her gender and lack of recognition as an artist and a mother. In this poem, as in her Elegiac Sonnets, her poetic voice mirrors her own sorrows in those of the people and places she sings.
Charlotte Smith passed away on 28 October 1806 in Tilford, leaving a profound legacy in literature.
Works
Novels
Throughout her literary career, Smith utilized her plots to explore pressing social and moral issues, characterized by profound intellectual depth and emotional resonance.
Notable novels include:
Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle (1788) - received acclaim for its exploration of emotional depth and resilience.
Ethelinde (1789)
Celestina (1791)
Desmond (1792)
The Old Manor House (1793)
The Wanderings of Warwick (1794)
The Banished Man (1794)
Montalbert (1795)
Marchmont (1796)
The Young Philosopher (1798)
she uses quite a lot of the gothic genre, extremely popular at the time, but we also see how she feels about the importance of creating an exotic setting, using France a lot as a background. Furthermore, her stories look back to the tradition of the Sentimental Novel, but at the same time, she used the plots to explore social and moral issues, thus giving the novels a peculiar intellectual (and often metaphorical) depth. Not only she deal with gender issues, but also with those of imperialism, colonialism, slavery and the French Revolution (she always had liberal political sympathies).
Poetry
Smith continued to write poetry throughout her life, with key works including:
The Emigrants (long poem, 1793) - addressed complex emotions surrounding exile.
Elegiac Sonnets II (1797)
Beachy Head (long poem, 1807) - resourced themes of nature and human existence.
She reshaped the sonnet genre by blending elements of the elegy and sonnet for greater depth and emotional exploration.
Once again, in her poetic production, Smith displays great familiarity with the traditional genres and at the same time an outstanding capacity to experiment with new genres, especially with reference to the use of blank verse.Additionally, Smith authored instructive books for children, especially towards the end of her life, notably Conversations Introducing Poetry for the Use of Children (1804), reflecting her commitment to nurturing future generations' appreciation for literature.
The Elegiac Sonnets and Other Essays by Charlotte Smith of Bignor Park, in Sussex (1784) met with immediate success and were quoted by William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge, reaching eight editions within sixteen years, in each of which new sonnets and a different introduction were included.
With Elegiac Sonnets, Charlotte Smith revitalized the sonnet genre whose fortune at the time was largely linked to the emotional overflow of a female heart. Considered mostly as a short, easily marketable poetic form, the sonnet filled occasional volumes, the so-called gift books, such as 'Keepsakes' or 'Commonplace Books'.' They presented, often around a given topic, a series of sentimental poetic essays of little artistic value.
The high tradition of the genre had instead been lost since the end of the seventeenth century. It was Charlotte Smith who was able to restore its canonical preciousness and conceive it according to a new and modern formula. Merging elegy and sonnet was a daring attempt by which poetry acquired depth and seriousness.
The interest in botany, which had always accompanied Smith, is catalyzed in her latest works published posthumously: Beachy Head, and a new text for childhood, titled A Natural History of Birds in two volumes. In fact, while the life of Charlotte Smith turned towards the end, marked by the death of some of her children and the expatriation towards the distant colonies of her other children in search of some economic improvement, her literary activity closed with the composition of a new long poem, Beachy Head, whose title derives from the name of the cliffs that appear to the traveller who lands in England from France.
The poem, published posthumously, offers the reader a poetic I that has reached a new and unpredictable serenity and that is so focused on the natural world that will deserve by the critics the nickname of the "Muse of Botany" for its author
Nature is at the centre of Beachy Head. Nature is observed and admired in all its aspects: from the most delicate shade of the sky to the most intense smell of the forest, from the vast horizon of the ocean, to the small stone hidden in the sand in which barely glimpses a fossil form lost for millennia.
Every detail is minutely described, almost dissected, with that typical anti-hierarchical look dear to the feminine eye of Romanticism of which Dorothy Wordsworth has offered us masterly examples. Judith Pascoe states that romanticism saw an explosion of naturalist women, while Stuart Curran remembers how the feminine eye, accustomed to embroidery and home care, was spontaneously attentive to detail.
Based on some of these premises, Donelle R. Ruwe interprets the poetry that springs from Beachy Head as a manifestation of the female sublime, whose characteristics differ from the traditional romantic male sublime not only because what the imagination creates is - like the flower, rock or wood "sensorial present", tangibly and materially visible, but also because it recognizes that its creation is completely autonomous without giving in to the temptation to dominate it, to bring it back to one's own power of perception.
Textual Analysis: The Emigrants (1793)
Context and Setting
The Emigrants was released during the tumultuous period of the French Terror, coinciding with an influx of French emigrants fleeing to England.
The poem opens with the speaker observing the arrival of these individuals on English shores, set against the backdrop of the September massacres in 1792 and political turmoil throughout Europe.
It encapsulates the emotional distress arising from the Revolution's failure to realize its lofty ideals, using a language that contrasts notions of peace with pervasive hostility.
Themes and Messages
The poem illustrates human distress, particularly the suffering of exiles, drawing parallels between Smith's personal experiences and the broader historical context.
It emphasizes the existential isolation faced by exiles and individuals affected by the consequences of historic upheaval.
Smith seeks to draw a distinction between the noble aspirations of revolutionary ideals and the horrific outcomes they often produced:
Conveys deep sorrow for the plight of the exiled, reaffirming a sense of shared human anguish.
Critiques societal norms and advocates for empathy in the face of political and social upheaval.
the passage
• The Emigrants (1793)
94 Behold, in witness of this mournful truth,
95 A group approach me, whose dejected looks,
96 Sad Heralds of distress! proclaim them Men
97 Banish'd for ever and for conscience sake
98 From their distracted Country, whence the name
99 Of Freedom misapplied, and much abus'd
100 By lawless Anarchy, has driven them far
101 To wander; with the prejudice they learn'd
102 From Bigotry (the Tut'ress of the blind),
103 Thro' the wide World unshelter'd; their sole hope,
104 That German spoilers, thro' that pleasant land
105 May carry wide the desolating scourge
106 Of War and Vengeance; yet unhappy Men,
107 Whate'er your errors, I lament your fate:
108 And, as disconsolate and sad ye hang
109 Upon the barrier of the rock, and seem
110 To murmur your despondence, waiting long
111 Some fortunate reverse that never comes;
112 Methinks in each expressive face, I see
113 Discriminated anguish; there droops one,
114 Who in a moping cloister long consum'd
115 This life inactive, to obtain a better,
116And thought that meagre abstinence, to wake
117 From his hard pallet with the midnight bell,
118 To live on eleemosynary bread,
119 And to renounce God's works, would please that God.
120 And now the poor pale wretch receives, amaz'd,
121 The pity, strangers give to his distress,
122 Because these strangers are, by his dark creed,
123 Condemn'd as Heretics---and with sick heart
124 Regrets his pious prison, and his beads.--
154 By early prejudice (so hard to break),
155 I mourn your sorrows; for I too have known
156 Involuntary exile; and while yet
157 England had charms for me, have felt how sad
158 It is to look across the dim cold sea,
159 That melancholy rolls its refluent tides
160 Between us and the dear regretted land
161 We call our own---as now ye pensive wait
162 On this bleak morning, gazing on the waves
163That seem to leave your shore; from whence the wind
164 Is loaded to your ears, with the deep groans
165 Of martyr'd Saints and suffering Royalty,
165 While to your eyes the avenging power of Heaven
166 Appears in awful anger to prepare
167 The storm of vengeance, fraught with plagues and death.
168 Even he of milder heart, who was indeed
169 The simple shepherd in a rustic scene,
general comments
The Emigrants appeared to the public for the first time in 1793, released "at the height of the French Terror", while Smith witnessed the arrival of the French emigrants including aristocrats, members of the clergy, and people who were considered antirevolutionary. Smith begins The Emigrants by describing a scene "on the Cliffs to the Eastward of the Town of Brighthelmstone in Sussex", which is located across the English Channel from France, now modern Brighton. Smith's poetic female speaker is a spectator of an open, natural space, in which she can observe the people who are disembarking on the English coasts.
Thus, the time in which The Emigrants is set is that that follows the massacres of September in 1792. The execution of the king had already taken place (January 1793) and with it the declaration of war of England to France during the period of terror (February 1793).
The execution of the sovereigns and Girondin leaders in 1793, outraged the English people and worried both the Whigs and the English radicals. If, to her, the reasons that led to the outbreak of the Revolution remain well-intentioned and necessary, its bloody consequences are seen not as the outcome of those ideals but rather as their mystification. Hence, Smith's intent is to distinguish between the aims and the means of the French Revolution and, at the same time, to use a language of peace and piety in a time of war and reciprocal hate and hostility.
In any case, Charlotte Smith's historical awareness and her own social circumstances did not allow her to remain indifferent to what concerned the victims of the French Revolution even though she was politically radical. Thus, if her sonnets do not express the causes but the consequences of the poet's social and existential discomfort, it is precisely the poem in blank verse The Emigrants that points out the reasons of her human disappointment making precise accusations.
Starting from the phenomenon of the flight of thousands of French for the deterioration of the political situation in the years following the outbreak of the Revolution, the poet associates the situation of these exiles to her own existential isolation and more in general to that of any human being exiled from his/her own country for historical or economic reasons or deprived of civil and political rights. The existence of these 'emigrants' sinks in solitude and disorientation. They feel uprooted, and, deprived of any social tie, security or affection. They can cherish only some memories of a lost happiness which makes their punishment even sharper.
Her gaze acquires a leading role from the very beginning of this poetical account of the arrival of the émigrés. In the poem, the exercise of witnessing the emigrants sympathetically effectively exposes the reader, from the beginning of the poem, to the migrants' collective condition of vulnerability. The female observer gradually becomes the spokesperson of these people while portraying herself as one of them.
The first book is set on "a Morning in November 1792", a period in which many members of the clergy who rejected the new Constitutional Church were declared traitors, and consequently immigrated to different European countries.
People belonging to the royal family also abandoned France with the hope of returning in the near future. To intensify this strained situation, during the September massacres, emigrants' properties were confiscated, and the death penalty was imposed on those who returned to France.The first book is set on "a Morning in November 1792", a period in which many members of the clergy who rejected the new Constitutional Church were declared traitors, and consequently immigrated to different European countries.
In lines 122-123 Smith refers to the ancient hostility that the English Protestants had towards the Catholic clergy since Henry VIII and viceversa. The clergy that the poet chose to place as one of the main subjects of The Emigrants are the French Catholic priests who, deprived by the laws of the revolution of their status and possessions, are forced to leave France to land, exile and miserable, on the shores of England.
The astonishment of being on the land of the traditional enemy and of having to recognize a new alliance and gratitude teaches them, but also who must welcome them, in Smith's sympathetic lines, a new and unprecedented vision of the world.