"A singular person": Portraits of subjectivity in the poetry and prose of Matilda Betham

Abstract

'A Singular Person': Portraits of Subjectivity in the Poetry and Prose of Matilda Betham represents the first book-length study of Matilda Betham's literary output. A poet, biographer, and portrait artist, Betham is best remembered for her friendships with S. T. Coleridge, the Lambs, and Robert Southey. Referring to manuscript and printed material, this thesis uses feminist and New Historical critical methods to examine Betham's contribution to British Romanticism. It offers a biography of Betham and a historically contextualised analysis of her own construction of women's role in civic affairs. Betham's political affiliations, as well as the generic range of her poetic and scholarly representations of history, suggest her engagement with contemporary discussions surrounding subjectivity and self-representation. Her Biographical Dictionary participates in a construction of female identity that redefines the feminine while acknowledging the influence of preceding historians. The location and recovery of her autobiographical writings inform this examination of Betham's biographical research. The thesis argues that Betham's political views surrounding broad social representation also emerge in her exploration of the relationship between the lyrical voice and enfranchised selfhood. Betham combines her scholarly and poetic depictions of the individual enacting social change in The Lay of Marie , a historically informed metrical romance that compares to compositions by poets, both male and female, who similarly consider the demands of subjective interpretation of publicly available modes of historical discourse.