{"id":1472,"date":"2016-03-31T21:21:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T20:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2016-03-31T21:21:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T20:21:56","slug":"acrostic-poems-love-and-life-in-the-ladys-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/2016\/03\/31\/acrostic-poems-love-and-life-in-the-ladys-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"Acrostic Poems, Love and Life in the Lady\u2019s Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the fascinating, yet easily overlooked, genres of the Lady\u2019s Magazine<\/em> is that of the acrostic (or, as they are often termed, \u2018acrostick\u2019) poem. Readily dismissed as amateurish attempts at poetry, the acrostic holds a special place in my heart. The acrostic offers much potentially valuable information about contributors\u2019 names, locations, and names of their beloved\/friends\/family.\u00a0The form also depends more on writers’ — and readers’ — ingenuity than it usually receives credit for.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>The acrostic poems in the magazine were exploited by the contributors in deliberately revealing ways. Their use is often not merely an attempt to highlight the contributor\u2019s cleverness, but a means of interacting with members of a local geographical community \u2013 most often (and this is why I love them) with the object of the writer\u2019s affection. Contributors could give voice to questions, desires, apologies and declarations to those closest to them in their personal lives through the pages of the magazine. The medium of the periodical provided a veil that allowed, in particular, women to voice their desire to men without the danger of being directly observed by a social circle and consequently condemned for forward or coquettish behavior.<\/p>\n

Within the pages of the poetry section, women were able to enjoy a flexible anonymity through which they could literally spell out their desires yet remain obscure enough to avoid any positive proofs of their declarations.\u00a01789 was a particularly fruitful year for acrostic poems and one frustratingly elusive couple in particular drew my attention. A contributor who signed herself \u2018Anna\u2019 wrote an acrostic poem in September 1789 entitled \u2018An Acrostical Prayer, on the much-lamented Illness of Mr. \u2014 of Au\u2014y Ch\u2014l\u2019 (LM <\/em>XX [Sept 1789]: 495)\u00a0The poem spells out \u2018Griffiths\u2019. Anna\u2019s prayer that Mr. Griffiths recover his health is repeated in November of the same year when she contributes the poem \u2018Absence\u2019 (LM<\/em>\u00a0XX\u00a0<\/em>[Nov 1789]: 604), lamenting the ongoing lack of \u2018G\u2014s\u2019 whose health is unrestored.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Immediately following Anna\u2019s poem \u2018Absence\u2019 appear \u2018To Anna\u2019, a short poem that is signed by \u2018W. G.\u2019 and states \u2018my health returns, again I live\u2019 (LM XX\u00a0<\/em>[Nov 1789]: 604)\u00a0\u2013 perhaps the mysterious Griffiths of Au\u2014y Ch\u2014l? In April of 1790 Anna returns to the magazine to offer \u2018A Thanksgiving for the Recovery of Mr. G \u2014s\u2019 which offers thanks and praise to God, to whom the poem is addressed. Yet Anna\u2019s hopes for Griffiths\u2019 recovery seem ill-founded. Seven months later, in November of 1790, over a year after her first poem appeared, Anna writes in again. This time the poem seems less joyful and more mournful; less certain and more doubtful. Anna\u2019s poem is less focused on prayers and thanks to God, and more on Griffiths and his impression.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This final poem, \u2018An Address to a Seal\u2019, sees Anna turn away from prayer and Christian fortitude and turn to metaphor and imagery. Anna writes \u2018As thy soft wax the deep impression takes, Which G\u2014in thy sable surface makes: So doth my heart his image still retain, where his idea ever will remain\u2019 (LM <\/em>XXI\u00a0<\/em>[Nov 1790]: 609). It is not, perhaps, the most original or well-written poem to grace the pages of the magazine. But I think it is honest, and the testament of a woman\u2019s love to a man she knows she may never see again. She is no longer coyly writing his name out in the acrostic; this is a different Anna indeed, who no longer begs \u2018O Lord, my prayer receive\u2019 (LM <\/em>XX\u00a0[Sept 1789]: 495). Anna in November 1790 addresses Griffith\u2019s seal, not<\/em> God, writing \u2018And I will ever keep thee for his sake. To thee I will impart each doubt and fear\u2019 (LM\u00a0<\/em>XXI\u00a0[Nov 1790]: 609) \u2013 almost as though she has turned away from the God to whom she had once offered thanksgiving for Griffiths\u2019 recovery, only to see him fall ill again.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Anna never writes about \u2018G\u2019, \u2018G\u2014s\u2019, or \u2018Griffiths\u2019 again. Her final lines in \u2018An Address to a Seal\u2019 that \u2018O may my hopes no more delusive be, then every anxious doubt and fear will flee\u2019 (LM<\/em> XXI\u00a0<\/em>[Nov 1790]: 609) remain, for us, unanswered. In spite of having spent hours searching for traces of a W. Griffiths or Anna (possible Anna Griffiths) of Au\u2014y Ch\u2014l, I\u2019ve yet to find anything definitive. Even though Anna is\u00a0not one of the magazine’s most\u00a0prolific or talented contributors, she is characteristic of the magazine’s many nameless, faceless writers: she voices her hopes, fears and love; she evolves through the pages of the magazine, she shares a little bit of her heartbreak and her world, and then she disappears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jenny DiPlacidi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the fascinating, yet easily overlooked, genres of the Lady\u2019s Magazine is that of the acrostic (or, as they are often termed, \u2018acrostick\u2019) poem. Readily dismissed as amateurish attempts at poetry, the acrostic holds a special place in my heart. The acrostic offers much potentially valuable information about contributors\u2019 names, locations, and names of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39798,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39798"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1472"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/ladys-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}