Premium
Self‐Murder, Female Agency and Manuscripts ‘Mangle'd and Falsify'd’: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's ‘1736. Address'd To –’ and The London Magazine
Author(s) -
Tung Shirley F.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12162
Subject(s) - sensibility , afterlife , agency (philosophy) , history , literature , classics , art , philosophy , epistemology
This article examines the effect of periodical formats on the reception history of eighteenth‐century poetry by tracing the composition and coterie circulation of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's holograph manuscript ‘1736. Address'd To –’, and its unauthorised publication in the June 1749 issue of The London Magazine under the revised title ‘Verses on Self‐Murder , address'd to – by A Lady’. The article argues that through misinterpretations of ‘Address'd To –’ as the product of disordered sensibility and as a result of editorial changes made by The London Magazine , Montagu's equivocal ‘philosophical reflexion’ on the Stoic afterlife is transformed into a sensationalised ‘lady's’ polemic defending suicide.