WEBVTT - Amy Levy 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.320 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:17.280 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. So recently 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.480 I was on a road trip with my beloved friend Bernadette, 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.720 and she mentioned that she had been reading the novels 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.480 of a Victorian Jewish woman writer and really enjoying them, 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.920 and my interest was piqued. Bernie is herself a writer. 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:32.120 She's a very smart woman. She's someone I've known for 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.000 a long time, and I generally trust her taste. She 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.559 has often introduced me to media that I might not 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.599 otherwise have found. And so I looked this person up. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.519 And then when I looked Amy Levy up, and I 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.560 have heard scholars pronounced her name both Levy and Levy. 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.000 We'll go with Levy, but just know that there's some 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.239 question mark there. But when I looked her up and 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.640 discovered that she was well known in Britain's literary circles 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.480 in the Victorian era, including having the admiral ration of 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:02.640 Lord Byron, I was a little wowed. And I was like, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.800 how had I missed her? My English major focused a 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:13.399 lot on English Victorian literature, yet no Amy Levy. It 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.480 turns out a lot of people missed her and for 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.640 a very long time, and the exact why is a 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.920 little bit difficult to pin down. I think part of 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.240 it is that her life was very short and it 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:27.240 ended tragically, and some of her work was controversial, and 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.200 she kind of has an intersectionality that I think a 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.920 lot of people have had trouble wrapping their brains around. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.840 But she was recognized as an extraordinary talent, specifically of 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.199 the eighteen eighties. So we're going to talk about her today, 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.240 and as a heads up, we need to let you 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.880 know there is a brief discussion of suicide late in 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:50.320 this episode. Amy Levy was born on November tenth, eighteen 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.000 sixty one, in the Lambeth section of London, to Louis 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:58.680 Levy and Isabelle Levin Levy. Louis Levy was a stockbroker, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.680 and the Levies were Jewish, but they seem to have 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.920 been fairly casual in their religion. Their gentile nanny sometimes 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.360 took the children with her to Christian church services. The 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.799 family didn't seem to rigorously observe religious dietary laws, and 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.840 some members of the family also celebrated Christmas, but there's 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.160 evidence that the family attended synagogue and that the children 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.760 may have had Hebrew lessons. Amy was the second child, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.600 after a sister named Katie, who she was very close to. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.960 Louis and Isabelle had five more children after Amy. They 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.920 were Alfred, Willie, ned Ella, and Donald. And from a 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.560 young age, literature was a deep love of Amy's and 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.880 that was one that she and her sister Katie shared, 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.920 and these two sisters, perhaps with contributions from their other siblings, 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.600 wrote and produced their own homemade and a handwritten literary 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.880 magazine for a number of years called the Poplar Club Journal, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:55.840 and some of the works in the surviving examples of 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.560 the journal were signed by the authors, but many were not. 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.720 So the the most part, it's a little unclear which 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:06.000 of the Levy children wrote which pieces, which included poems, plays, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.880 short stories, and even some art and illustration, and it 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:13.120 seems like at least in some cases, Amy Levy wrote, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.359 even at this young age, in multiple voices under multiple 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.280 noms to plume. It contains also brief critiques of the 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.880 included works, and one issue featured a notice that if 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.720 a member of the club did not contribute, they would 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:31.800 be fined us. I find all of this absolutely delightful. 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.920 Over the years, these family magazines continued. They seemed like 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.800 they may have have expanded to include the work of 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.560 friends as well, but they also shifted in tone and 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.320 quality as the children aged, and the magazine was given 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.560 different names at different points in time. As a teenager 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.600 of fifteen, Amy was enrolled at Brighton High School for Girls, 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.080 which had its foundations in the women's rights movement. Brighton 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.280 also offered primary school education for boys, and Amy's brothers, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.320 Alfred and Really, attended with her. Amy corresponded with her 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.400 family regularly during this time because it was a school 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.720 far from home, and her letters offer a glimpse in 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.520 a very close family and at her enjoyment of boarding school. 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:15.640 In a brief note to her father, she writes, quote, 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.480 dear Papa, I have time before tea to write you 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:20.680 a few lines so that you may not think I 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.480 have forgotten you. I wish you would come down with 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.080 Mama to see us. It is so very nice here. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:28.720 You would like to see St. Peter's old church. It 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:33.760 is so curious and antique, But hints of depression also appear, 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.520 which is something that echoes throughout her life. In one 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.159 letter during this time, she mentions to her mother, quote, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.400 I have quite recovered from the blues, which was horrid 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.400 of me to mention. But it's in her letters to 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.560 her sister Katie that Amy is really unrestrained, and she 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.200 shares her innermost thoughts with her sister. One aspect of 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.320 these letters between sisters is what appears to be Amy 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.880 Levy's casual mention of her romantic feelings for women. She mentions, 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.240 in particular the school's headmistress, Ms. Creek, and refers to 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.320 herself as the woman's quote wormy adorer, saying that she 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:14.320 quote bagged a divine passion, inspiring whenever I think of it, 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.880 Embraced today at the sanctum door. She continues this discussion 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.560 of her crush, writing quote, I am more in love 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.800 with her than ever, isn't it grim? I don't believe 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.000 it will go for ages, and I can never care 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.920 for anyone or anything else while it lasts. I make 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.479 such different future pictures to what I used to. You 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.760 married maternal with a tendency to laugh at the Plain 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.640 High school mistress sister who grinds and lodges with chums 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.040 and adores without return. These writings and others from her 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.320 time at Brighton offer an image of a young woman 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:51.240 who's really full of wit and opinions and creativity. In 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.479 some she writes documents of imagined scenarios, sort of like forgeries, 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.360 but she's not actually passing them off to anyone, such 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.680 as letters between two people, neither of which are herself. 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.200 She also was writing verse at this time, including a 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.720 poem which was titled run to Death, and she wrote 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.000 that when she was only fifteen. As this title suggests, 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.400 run to Death is a grim story, all the more 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.520 so for having been written by a teenager. It's subtitled 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.480 a true Incident of pre Revolutionary French History, and features 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.039 a hunting party of nobles who discover a surprising prey 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.800 in the forest. When they look out at what's in 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.840 the brush, they find that they're gazing quote at a 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.880 something which is crawling with slow step from tree to tree. 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:40.520 Is it some shadow phantom? Ghastly? No? A woman and child, 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.279 swarthy woman with the gypsy written clear upon her face, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:49.400 gazing around her with wide eyes, dark and shadow fringed 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:54.239 and wild, with the cowed suspicious glances of a persecuted race. 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.640 Then they all, with unasked question in each other's faces, peer, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.440 for a common thought has struck them one their lips, 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:08.000 dare scarcely say to Lord Gaston, cries impatient, Why regret 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.920 the stately dear when such sport as Yonder offers quick 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.760 unleashed the dogs away. The last lines of this poem 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.280 described the huntsman having finished their cruel chase and killed 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.880 the mother and her child, writing in silent shame back 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.280 to the manor house, where they then tell the ladies 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.440 there what a quote famous hunt they have had that day, 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.200 without mention of what they'd actually done. This poem wasn't 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.280 published until three years after it was written, when Victoria 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.560 magazine picked it up. Amy continued to be a very 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.360 productive writer as a teenager. When she was seventeen, she 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.880 wrote a letter that was published in the Jewish Chronicle 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:51.040 titled Jewish Women and Women's Rights. In it, themes that 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.320 would continue into her professional career are apparent, as she 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.800 advocated for professional opportunities for women. Coming up, we're going 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.400 to talk about. The poem became one of Levy's most 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.000 famous works, even though it was written when she was 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.920 still a teenager. But before we get into that, we 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:19.120 will pause for a sponsor break. Amy wrote a poem 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.520 while she was still a student at Brighton, right around 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.920 the time that Run to Death came out, and this 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.880 one conveyed the frustration of Victorian women by relaying the 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.640 story of socrates marriage from the perspective of his wife, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.520 zan Tippi. Her name is also the title of the poem, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.880 and in this particular work, which was written as a 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.199 dramatic monologue, Xantippi reflects on her life from her deathbed, 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.920 and particularly mourns the promise of her youth, when she 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.120 was so enthralled with intellectual pursuits, only to have that 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.600 part of herself unwelcomed in the marriage. She wrote, yet 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.760 maiden's mark. I would not that he thought I blame 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.439 my Lord departed, for he meant no evil. So I 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.239 take it to his wife. Twas only that the high philosopher, 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.920 pregnant with noble theories and great thoughts, deigned not to 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.839 stoop to touch so slight a thing as the fine 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.559 fabric of a woman's brain, so subtle as a passionate 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.640 woman's soul. I think if he had stooped a little 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.360 and cared I might have risen nearer to his height, 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.920 and not Lane shattered, neither fit for use as goodly 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.600 household vessel, nor for that far finer thing which I 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.880 had hoped to be. But like run to death, zan 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.760 Tippi was not immediately published. The monologue was finished in 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.200 eighteen seventy nine, not long before the eighteen year old 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:43.319 Levy enrolled at Newnham College, a women's college at Cambridge University. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.800 This made her the first Jewish woman to attend Newnham 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.800 and the second Jewish woman to attend Cambridge. It seems, 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:52.880 based on some of her writing while she was there, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.320 that while she was feeling really elated it once seemed 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.480 like a career opening up for her, she may not 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.720 have exact really enjoyed her time at Cambridge, or at 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.240 least the people who she encountered there. She wrote a 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.480 verse play during this time, titled Reading that's set in 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:13.960 sort of a fictionalized Cambridge and features characters named Professor 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.320 Ego and Bob Bumptious, who seemed flum mixed by the 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.240 women around them. But the men are not the only 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.880 targets of her satire. She also has characters named Cornelia 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.760 Connex and Janet Garend who ached to be intellectuals, and 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.120 while everyone gets a dose of Levy sharp though comedic critique, 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.320 it is ultimately men who get the harshest words for 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.920 their quote, shallow sentiment, and their treatment of women. Her story, 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.679 Leopold Lineager a study, features a main character really grappling 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.880 with his Jewish identity, anti Semitism, and self loathing, and 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.640 includes this line about his personal revelation quote. What stuns 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.400 Leopold into despair is the recognition that one cannot stop 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:02.920 being a Jew, that self transfer, nation, self reinvention is impossible. 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.440 Another piece of writing from this time expresses frustration being 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.719 a woman who was also a novelty at the university. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.240 Titled Lolly a Cambridge Sketch, The story is told through 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.920 two characters. Lolly a daughter of a professor and wrote 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.480 to a student, and together these two represent two very 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:26.880 different modes of womanhood. Lolly is a traditional young woman 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.199 and Rhota a scholar. Neither of them gets what they want. 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.320 Lolly wants a marriage and love, but the object of 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.559 her affection chooses Rhoda, and choosing to marry Rhoda has 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.760 to give up her studies and access to intellectual fulfillment. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.360 Neither of these writings were published, and a lot of 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.000 her writing during her years at Newnham similarly went unpublished. 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.800 Much of it was discovered years and years and years later, 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.640 written in notebooks, probably never intended for reviewer publication. A 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.400 lot of her work, both published and unpublish, is from 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.080 this time in her life reflects an artist kind of 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.760 working through issues of identity and the ways in which 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.640 choices to go down a certain direction in life mean 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.120 that other options become unavailable. Similar to those themes in 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.600 Lally at Cambridge Sketch, she sometimes wrote from the point 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.440 of view of male protagonists, characters which, like Leopold, are 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.600 usually filled with self loathing. In one Levy's first book, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.520 Zantippi and Other Verse, was published, and so at nineteen 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.760 she was suddenly a well reviewed poet, lauded for her 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.480 deft and nimble use of words. She also decided to 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.080 leave school that year rather than complete her final year 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.959 at Noonham. The reason for this decision is not known. 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.200 Biographer Linda Hunt Beckman notes that a surviving fragment of 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.600 a letter from earlier in the year mentions that Amy's 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.480 recovering from something. It's not clear what, but it may 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.960 have been some sort of breakdown or an intense depressive episode. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.440 That letter, though, indicates a plan to return to school 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.640 for the summer term, and that's something that she did. 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.679 In eight one. The women of Newnham College had also 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.960 just been granted the chance to take the exams that 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.520 were used to qualify students for a bachelor's degree at Cambridge. 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.760 While this was a huge step forward, it also meant 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.640 that attendees of Newnham had to take courses that were 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:27.320 prescribed by the school, including ones that Amy was likely 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.040 not very interested in. Levy wrote a news article about 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:36.160 this transition and mentioned specifically the quote mathematical classes organized 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.240 for unhappy people whose souls are yearning for Plato or mill. 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.040 But she also released a book of poetry that had 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.319 been very well received, so it's possible that she felt 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.720 it was just time for her career as a writer 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.440 to start in earnest. Yeah, apparently prior to that they 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.280 could have kind of an unstructured, take what you want 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.559 approach to their course load. And then when it was like, wait, 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:04.440 I have required courses now, I could see hopping out 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.440 at that point, But like I said, we don't know, 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.920 but after Cambridge, Levy traveled around Europe, visiting Switzerland and 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.520 Germany in particular, several times maintaining a home base of 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.640 sorts in London with her parents. She did this for 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.920 four years after leaving college, but she was still continuing 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.000 her education in her own way, taking courses or lessons 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.720 in various cities as opportunities and her interest intersected. She 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.280 found work teaching German schoolboys English, but that job was 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.119 really over before it started. Her mother forbade it as improper. 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.280 She was, however, intent on making her own way financially, 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.520 and it seems like there may have been a drop 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.920 in the family's fortunes that magnified that desire. Throughout this time, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.560 she wrote to her family regularly, sharing her various experiences 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.520 with them, often with the same biting which she used 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.280 in her satirical writing. She was back home in London 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.200 for most of eighteen eighty three, and although she lived 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.120 with her parents during her time there, she was living 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.720 an independent life. Most likely because of financial strain. Louis 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.920 and Isabelle Levy moved from their home at Sussex Place, 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.000 Regent's Park to Ulster Place, Regent's Park and then soon 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.680 thereafter to a house in Bloomsbury. While this evidenced a 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.240 downgrade in their lifestyle, it also put their residence in 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.600 close proximity to the British Museum. Even before the family 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.200 had moved so close to it, Amy was a frequent 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.360 visitor at the British Museum's reading room and its lunch 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.640 room for women. She met a variety of women who 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:42.080 were tied to various progressive movements and social reforms, including 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.880 the daughter of Karl Marx who was named Eleanor. Although 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.400 she became friends with these women, it doesn't appear that 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.280 she was ever drawn into their political efforts. Levy wrote 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.720 about the reading room and an essay for Atlanta several 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.440 years after this period of her life. That was in 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.800 eighty nine, and it was titled Readers at the British Museum. 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.480 Levy was also part of an intellectual social club in London, 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.680 and members of her family sometimes attended the meetings where 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.400 all manner of topics were discussed. The Levy sometimes even 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.040 hosted the group in their own home, so it seems 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.560 like she had a fairly stable system of friends and 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.720 family at this point. She continued her impressive writing pace 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.760 after zen Tippie's positive reception, and in eighteen eighty three 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.280 she published Between Two Stools. In eighteen eighty four, there 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.400 was Socratics in the Strand. Her melancholic work A Minor 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.640 Poet and Other Verse was also published in eighteen eighty four. 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.120 The contents of this book are really morose in tone. 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.080 A lot of them were written while she was visiting Dresden, 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.320 and zen Tippi is reprinted in this volume. In eighteen 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.200 eighty six, Levy lived abroad for the winter in Florence, 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.160 specifically where she traveled with one of her closest friends, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.760 feminist writer Clementina Black. Black wrote in letters during this 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.200 time that Amy was getting well, which suggests she was 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:04.520 once again in the midst of a decline in either 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.920 her mental or physical health, or both. While in Florence, 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.960 Amy worked as a correspondent for the Jewish Chronicle, covering 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.800 Jewish life in Italy. In this position, which is usually 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.399 discussed as a job that her father had used his 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.600 connections to get for her, she wrote articles that were 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.080 largely about Jewish identity from a cultural rather than religious standpoint, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:28.959 and this seems to have been as much an exploration 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.720 of her own Jewish identity, as it was the identity 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.040 of Italy's Jewish communities. One of the things that she 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.760 felt tethered her to the Jewish community was a shared 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.600 sense of humor, something she wrote about in an essay 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.639 titled Jewish Humor for The Jewish Chronicle. While in Florence, 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.439 Levy met Vernon Lee, also known as Violet Paget. We 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.840 have an episode on her that as of when we're 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.880 recording this, I'm planning to use as a Saturday Classic, 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.159 but that's also some weeks from now, so if something 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:05.000 happens Bump Bump, I'll see. Paget had started going by 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.680 the name Vernon Lee as a team at that point, 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.359 using a man's name and her writings in order to 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.720 be taken more seriously. And there has been some speculation 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.480 that maybe Lee and Amy Levy were in a relationship. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.040 While Vernon Lee resisted the label of lesbian in her 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.639 life despite relationships with women, the nature of the relationship 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.120 between Levy and Lee or Paget, which is what Levy 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.960 called her, is not entirely certain. There was clearly a 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:37.160 very deep emotional attachment on Levy's part. She wrote love 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.879 poems titled to Vernon Lee and New Love, New Life, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.760 and she sent them to Paget, as well as correspondence 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.520 that obviously conveys a very intense affection. She addresses all 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.840 of her letters to my dear miss Paget and calls 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.639 her quote an electric battery to me, suggesting that being 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.600 with Paget is where her best creative energy comes from. 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.520 When Leavy, after her return to London, wrote that she 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:04.919 couldn't make it back to Florence as planned due to 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.439 circumstances of others, most likely a family matter, as her 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.920 brother Alfred was ill and passed around this time, Paget 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.280 sent her a bouquet of flowers, which she then wrote 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.440 about she was so touched by it. New Love, New 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.119 Life is a relatively short poem, so we'll read the 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.199 whole thing to give a sense of the verse that 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:26.880 Amy was sending to Violet Paget. One she who so 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.480 long has lain stone stiff with folded wings within my 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:35.960 heart Again the brown bird wakes and sings, brown nightingale, 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.399 whose strain is heard by day by night. She sings 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:44.639 of joy and pain, of sorrow and delight. Two tis true, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.440 and other days have I unbarred the door. He knows 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.480 the walks and ways. Love has been here before, Love 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.959 blessed and love accursed was here in days long past. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.439 This time is not the first, but this time is 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:04.000 the last. To Vernon Lee is similarly intimate. Although it's ending, 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.480 Stanza suggests that perhaps Levy's feelings were unrequited, and that 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.760 she knew that, or that she hoped that Paget would 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.280 reassure her of some sort of reciprocation, writing quote, A 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.359 snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach. You broke a branch 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.719 and gave it to me. There I found for you 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:26.399 a scarlet blossom rare thereby ran on of art and life, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.280 our speech, and of the gifts the gods had given 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:34.399 each hope. Unto you and unto me despair. Regardless of 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:38.560 whether Vernon Lee and Amy Levy were romantically connected, their 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.679 friendship was pivotal to Levy because she, in turn became 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:47.000 acquainted with a new group of creative intellectuals, though there 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.159 were some that she had known before becoming friends with 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.000 Violet Paget, and perhaps because of this new social set, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:58.280 the mid to late eighteen eighties were incredibly prolific for Levy, 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:02.960 she wrote all lot. She wrote essays like Women in 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.919 club Life and the Poetry of Christina Rosetti, and short stories, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.280 including at Prato and the recent Telepathic Occurrence at the 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.280 British Museum. That last title served as a way to 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.720 critique the many men who frequented the British Museum reading room, 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.920 and we're openly hostile about women being there. And that 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.199 male character is so engrossed in his work that he 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:33.040 fails to witness an astonishing appearance of a specter near 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.040 the card catalog, which is just right there in plain view. 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.000 I sort of love that whole setup so much. Um. 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.919 Up to this point, Amy Levy had not published any novels, 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:46.080 although she had worked on at least one that she 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:50.359 eventually abandoned. But her work as a novelist was significant 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.239 and ultimately difficult in a variety of ways. And we're 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.399 going to talk about that after we hear from the 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.080 sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going. 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.720 Though Levi's Poems and Tippy remains probably her most well 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.040 known work, two novels written during this period of her 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:18.240 life largely define her legacy. The first was titled Romance 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.160 of a Shop and it is about women choosing unexpected 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:24.800 life paths. Specifically, it tells the story of four sisters 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:29.240 whose father dies, and the story opens just after the father, Mr. Lorimer, 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:33.040 has passed and the four sisters, Fanny, Gertrude, Lucy and 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.280 Phyllis are figuring out how they will survive as they 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.880 have been left with nothing. The sisters decided to open 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:42.439 a photography studio as a means to take care of 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:46.400 themselves financially, and the plot involves a number of steps 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:50.560 along the path to success for them, including taking post 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:54.800 mortem photographs and photographing works of art. But the story 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.560 is really about the lives of the women involved, the 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.639 choices they make, and their relationship with the men that 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:04.440 they love. This was well reviewed and it established Levy 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.720 as a novelist. After the publication of Romance of a Shop, 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:12.080 Levy visited Florence once again, and she wrote during this 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:15.720 time about a personal melancholy, a heartache over a breakup, 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.760 which is considered to have likely been the writer Dorothy Blomfield, 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.639 who was another member of Vernon Lee's circle. In January 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:28.800 eight nine, Levy's novel Reuben Sacks was published. This book 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.920 quickly became a problem in its reception. The plot revolves 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.679 around the titular character that's a lawyer who experienced a 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:41.080 nervous collapse, went away to recuperate, and then returns to 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:44.640 London as the book opens. Although he falls in love 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:48.000 with his cousin Judith, he ultimately rejects her in favor 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:52.399 of a more lucrative match. Judith makes a socially smart 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:56.399 match after losing Reuben, and the novel examines themes of 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.480 love and expectation, of Jewish families working to fit into 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:03.520 English society, and of a woman's place and her barriers 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:07.240 to fulfillment. Jewish critics really felt that Levy's work of 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.199 prose was a harsh criticism of Jewish life and that 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:14.320 it was riddled with stereotypes. Gentile readers seemed to feel 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:17.960 that it validated every negative stereotype about Jews and saw 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:21.640 it as a sort of expose a from within the community, 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:24.639