Visiting the Country House: Generic Innovation in Mary Leapor’s “Crumble-Hall.”

Young, Sharon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2676-4987 (2015) Visiting the Country House: Generic Innovation in Mary Leapor’s “Crumble-Hall.”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 34 (1). pp. 51-64. ISSN 0732-7730

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Abstract

Many studies of Mary Leapor’s poetry focus on her gender and laboring class origins to frame their analysis, and while this article does not seek to challenge these
readings, it will contend that this emphasis on biographical contexts does not adequately
account for Leapor as a poet. Instead, this article will argue for a closer examination of
Leapor’s engagement with genre to reveal her response to contexts beyond her immediate
circumstances. To illustrate this, the article will reconsider “Crumble-Hall” (1751), one
of Leapor’s best-known poems. The poem not only demonstrates Leapor’s understanding
of gender and class but also two broader, hitherto largely ignored cultural contexts, which
are revealed through Leapor’s use of the country house genre: the fashion for collecting
curios, art, and furniture and the related phenomena of tourism. “Crumble-Hall” is often
regarded as a late and rather anomalous example of the country house poem; however,
through this reading, it may be seen as belonging to a wider body of country house poetry,
which extended into the mid-eighteenth century and increasingly included the house as an
integral part of its discussion. Reading Leapor’s poem with a focus on genre also expands
our critical understanding of mid-eighteenth-century women’s poetry and poetic practices
more generally

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