Gerrard, Christine. Aaron Hill: The Muses’ Projector 1685-1750. Oxford University Press, 2003.
71
Martha Fowke
-
Standard Name: Fowke, Martha
Used Form: Martha Fowke Sansom
Birth Name: Martha Fowke
Indexed Name: Mrs Fowke
Married Name: Martha Sansom
Pseudonym: Clio
Nickname: Gloatitia
Nickname: The Amorous Lady
Apart from her unidentified periodical contributions, most of the early eighteenth-century MF
's writings in prose (epistolary and autobiographical) and poetry have a strongly erotic tone. She has been described as a poet whose writing mediated between older courtly traditions of coterie writing and the new commercial world of publication.
Connections
| Connections Sort descending | Author name | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| Friends, Associates | Eliza Haywood | At this point in her life EH
entered on literary relationships with Aaron Hill
(who, with some gallant condescension, was a good friend to women writers) and his circle. They included Richard Savage
(who has... |
| Friends, Associates | Susanna Centlivre | In the 1720s she belonged to an informal literary club which included Anthony Hammond
(with whom she was supposed to have had her most youthful liaison), Ambrose Philips
, Martha Fowke
, and Eliza Haywood
. Bowyer, John Wilson. The Celebrated Mrs Centlivre. Duke University Press, 1952. 229-30 |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Sappho | Sappho
's name was an honorific for women writers for generations. George Puttenham
may have been the first to use it to compliment a writing woman: in Parthienades, 1579, he said that Queen Elizabeth |
| Literary responses | Eliza Haywood | This year EH
was praised by James Sterling
, but compared to her disadvantage with Martha Fowke
by Richard Savage
. |
| Literary responses | Eliza Haywood | The personal attacks in this work provoked backlash. Haywood was either reproved or attacked in her turn by Richard Savage
, Martha Fowke
, and David Mallet
, and their attacks established the convention that... |
| Literary responses | Delarivier Manley | |
| Occupation | John Donne | The highly literary great ladies of the Renaissance were part of Donne's writing environment. His predecessors in metrical experiment included Mary, Countess of Pembroke
. He wrote in praise of her and of minor court... |
| Textual Features | Ann Batten Cristall | The preface expresses admiration for both Burns
and George Dyer
. ABC
stresses her lack of education (which, critic Richard C. Sha
argues, associates herself with lower-class writers like William Blake
and Henry Kirke White |
| Textual Production | Eliza Haywood | Aaron Hill
's Plain Dealer number 53 printed an admiring elegy on the lately-dead Manley
whose author was probably either EH
or Martha Fowke Sansom
. Fowke, Martha. Clio. Editor Guskin, Phyllis J., University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 1997. 34 |
| Textual Production | Eliza Haywood | Haywood used to be generally credited with this testimony to a women's literary tradition, but editor Phyllis Guskin
judges that it was more probably written by Sansom
. Fowke, Martha. Clio. Editor Guskin, Phyllis J., University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 1997. 34 |
| Textual Production | Eliza Haywood | It is not clear whether a first edition was published and read out of existence; in any case, no known copy survives. It may be that the collection's first appearance was the one called the... |
| Theme or Topic Treated in Text | Eliza Haywood | The work includes a separately-paginated prefatory essay: Discourse Concerning Writings Of This Nature—that is, about the nature and purposes of letters, especially love-letters, and their dangers to women. The Discourse closes ironically with two... |
| Theme or Topic Treated in Text | Eliza Haywood | The Injur'd Husband features a female villain, the Baroness de Tortillée, who poisons her husband, gets him locked up, and breaks up the honourable love of Beauclair for the virtuous woman Montamour (who then assumes... |
| Theme or Topic Treated in Text | Eliza Haywood | A Spy upon the Conjuror is made up (after an anecdotal preface) of letters addressed to Campbell by fictional clients, and presents him as a focus for love-confidences and a centre of scandal. (It again... |
| Theme or Topic Treated in Text | Eliza Haywood | This book builds on the writing of Delarivier Manley
in the mixed genre of scandal novel or allegorised political satire. Prominent among its many targets is EH
's fellow-writer (and fellow associate with Aaron Hill |
Timeline
19 May 1720: A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond,...
Women writers item
19 May 1720
A New Miscellany, edited by Anthony Hammond
, included work by Pope
, Prior
, William Bond
, George Sewell
, Susanna Centlivre
, Delarivier Manley
, Eliza Haywood
, Martha Fowke
, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
.
Lonsdale, Roger, editor. Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Oxford University Press, 1990.
84
Grundy, Isobel. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment. Clarendon, 1999.
198
February 1726: Richard Savage published his Miscellaneous...
Writing climate item
February 1726
Richard Savage
published his Miscellaneous Poems and Translations: dedicated to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
, it included work by Eliza Haywood
, Martha Fowke
, and Miranda Hill
.
Grundy, Isobel. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment. Clarendon, 1999.
263-4 and nn68, 69
Prescott, Sarah. Women, Authorship, and Literary Culture, 1690-1740. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
9 October 1731: The Barbados Gazette, edited by Samuel Keimer,...
Women writers item
9 October 1731
The Barbados Gazette, edited by Samuel Keimer
, published its first issue.
Overton, Bill, editor. A Letter to My Love. University of Delaware Press, 2001.
13-14, and n8
Early 1741-late 1742: Caribbeana was published in London: two volumes...
Women writers item
Early 1741-late 1742
Caribbeana was published in London: two volumes of items from the Barbados Gazette of the previous decade.
Overton, Bill, editor. A Letter to My Love. University of Delaware Press, 2001.
16 and n10
The prefaces to the two volumes are dated 17 December 1740 and 20 August 1742.
By 22 July 1797: William Beckford published a second and more...
Women writers item
By 22 July 1797
William Beckford
published a second and more marked burlesque attack on women's writing: Azemia: A Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. Interspersed with Pieces of Poetry.
Beckford, William. Azemia. Sampson Low, 1797, 2 vols.
1: 21; 2: 43, 61, 236ff
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
2nd ser. 20 (1797): 470
Texts
Fowke, Martha. Clio. M. Cooper, 1752.
Fowke, Martha. Clio. Editor Guskin, Phyllis J., University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 1997.
Fowke, Martha. “Introduction”. Clio, edited by Phyllis J. Guskin, University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 1997, pp. 15-50.
Fowke, Martha. “On being charged with writing incorrectly”. Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol.
4
, p. 327. Fowke, Martha, and William Bond. The Epistles of Clio and Strephon. J. Hooke, 1720.