Michael Field

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Katherine Harris Bradley
Edith Emma Cooper

Michael Field was the common pseudonym of the English writers Katherine Harris Bradley (1846-1914) and Edith Emma Cooper (1862-1913), aunt and niece, who published several volumes of poetry and 30 verse dramas .

Life and work

Katherine Bradley was born in Birmingham in 1846 to a tobacco manufacturer who died in 1848. After the sister's marriage in 1860, the family moved to Kenilworth, Warwickshire , where Katherine took over the upbringing of her daughter Edith Cooper from 1865 due to the poor health of her sister.

After her mother's death in 1868, Katherine attended the Collège de France and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge . In 1878, Katherine and Edith went to Bristol together , where they took classes in classics at college and joined the suffragettes . In addition to trips to Italy, France and England, they spent their later life mainly in London , where they had lively contact with the literary scene. There is evidence that Katherine and Edith were lovers.

Her first poems ( The New Minnesinger and Other Poems ) Katherine Bradley published in 1875 under the pseudonym Arran Leigh - a reference to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic poem "Aurora Leigh". The first joint work by Bradley and Cooper ( Bellerophôn ) appeared in 1881 under the two pseudonyms Arran Leigh and Isla Leigh. From 1884 they wrote as Michael Field.

Michael Field's earlier poetry is mostly shaped by her study of classical antiquity. The references to Greek mythology and cultural history - in particular to Dionysus and Sappho ( Long Ago ) - testify less to the intention to appear scholarly than to a hedonistic questioning of Victorian prudery and male dominance in cultural discourses. With this rebellious attitude, Michael Field also took an important step towards modernity . They sometimes experimented with free and spontaneous forms, their handling of images anticipated imagism :

     A Girl,
        Her soul a deep-wave pearl
     Dim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;
        A face flowered for heart's ease,
        A brow's grace soft as seas
        Seen through faint forest-trees:
     [...]

In 1907 Bradley and Cooper converted to Catholicism , which left its mark on their literary work. Michael Field now wrote in the field of tension between pagan hedonism and Christian penance .

Edit Cooper died of cancer in 1913. Katherine Bradley then continued working alone under the pseudonym Michael Field, but died in 1914, also of cancer.

The diaries and correspondence of Michael Fields were also published posthumously.

Works (selection)

Poetry

  • Long Ago (1889)
  • Sight and Song (1892)
  • Underneath the Bough (1893)
  • Wild Honey from Various Thyme (1908)
  • Poems of Adoration (1912)
  • Mystic Trees (1913)

drama

  • Callirrhoe & Fair Rosamund (1884)
  • The Father's Tragedy (1885)
  • William Rufus (1885)
  • Loyalty or Love? (1885)
  • Brutus Ultor (1886)
  • Canute the Great (1887)
  • The Cup of Water (1887)
  • The Tragic Mary (1890)
  • Stephania, a Trialogue (1892)
  • A Question of Memory (1893)
  • Attila, My Attila! (1896)
  • World at Auction (1898)
  • Noontide Branches (1899)
  • Anna Ruina (1899)
  • Race of Leaves (1901)
  • Julia Domna (1903)
  • Borgia (1905)
  • Queen Mariamne (1908)
  • Tragedy of Pardon (1911)
  • Tristan de Léonois (1911)
  • Dian (1911)
  • The Accuser (1911)
  • A Messiah (1911)
  • Ras Byzance (published 1918)
  • Deirdre (published 1918)
  • In the Name of Time (published 1919)

literature

Web links