Medievalist Epics by an English Woman Poet: Margaret Holford’s Wallace; or, The Fight of Falkirk and Margaret of Anjou: a Poem

Abstract

Margaret Holford (1778-1852) was an English woman poet, a translator and at the same time a novelist. She produced her works in a number of genres but she was not much anthologized like her contemporaries. However, she published two major works, Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk (1809) and Margaret of Anjou: A Poem (1816) which drew the attention of the critics. The time in which Holford published her poems, there was a great interest in medieval history and culture, and this interest led many writers to produce medievalist works. Margaret Holford was one of those writers but she differs from her women contemporaries since most of the women writers did not prefer to use Medievalism in their works. At this juncture, by using medieval characters and setting, she becomes a precursor of the movement of the Medieval Revival in terms of women’s writing. Furthermore, Holford writes her poems in a heroic mode by employing many essential characteristics of the epic genre in her poems although there were certain prejudices about women poets in terms of writing epics. This thesis will illustrate that Margaret Holford writes her poems Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk and Margaret of Anjou: A Poem in the heroic mode by employing essential qualities of epics. Most importantly, since Margaret Holford has not been studied in depth and there are very few studies related to her, this thesis will pave the way for the further studies about her works.