Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. So recently
Speaker 1: I was on a road trip with my beloved friend Bernadette,
Speaker 1: and she mentioned that she had been reading the novels
Speaker 1: of a Victorian Jewish woman writer and really enjoying them,
Speaker 1: and my interest was piqued. Bernie is herself a writer.
Speaker 1: She's a very smart woman. She's someone I've known for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I generally trust her taste. She
Speaker 1: has often introduced me to media that I might not
Speaker 1: otherwise have found. And so I looked this person up.
Speaker 1: And then when I looked Amy Levy up, and I
Speaker 1: have heard scholars pronounced her name both Levy and Levy.
Speaker 1: We'll go with Levy, but just know that there's some
Speaker 1: question mark there. But when I looked her up and
Speaker 1: discovered that she was well known in Britain's literary circles
Speaker 1: in the Victorian era, including having the admiral ration of
Speaker 1: Lord Byron, I was a little wowed. And I was like,
Speaker 1: how had I missed her? My English major focused a
Speaker 1: lot on English Victorian literature, yet no Amy Levy. It
Speaker 1: turns out a lot of people missed her and for
Speaker 1: a very long time, and the exact why is a
Speaker 1: little bit difficult to pin down. I think part of
Speaker 1: it is that her life was very short and it
Speaker 1: ended tragically, and some of her work was controversial, and
Speaker 1: she kind of has an intersectionality that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have had trouble wrapping their brains around.
Speaker 1: But she was recognized as an extraordinary talent, specifically of
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties. So we're going to talk about her today,
Speaker 1: and as a heads up, we need to let you
Speaker 1: know there is a brief discussion of suicide late in
Speaker 1: this episode. Amy Levy was born on November tenth, eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, in the Lambeth section of London, to Louis
Speaker 1: Levy and Isabelle Levin Levy. Louis Levy was a stockbroker,
Speaker 1: and the Levies were Jewish, but they seem to have
Speaker 1: been fairly casual in their religion. Their gentile nanny sometimes
Speaker 1: took the children with her to Christian church services. The
Speaker 1: family didn't seem to rigorously observe religious dietary laws, and
Speaker 1: some members of the family also celebrated Christmas, but there's
Speaker 1: evidence that the family attended synagogue and that the children
Speaker 1: may have had Hebrew lessons. Amy was the second child,
Speaker 1: after a sister named Katie, who she was very close to.
Speaker 1: Louis and Isabelle had five more children after Amy. They
Speaker 1: were Alfred, Willie, ned Ella, and Donald. And from a
Speaker 1: young age, literature was a deep love of Amy's and
Speaker 1: that was one that she and her sister Katie shared,
Speaker 1: and these two sisters, perhaps with contributions from their other siblings,
Speaker 1: wrote and produced their own homemade and a handwritten literary
Speaker 1: magazine for a number of years called the Poplar Club Journal,
Speaker 1: and some of the works in the surviving examples of
Speaker 1: the journal were signed by the authors, but many were not.
Speaker 1: So the the most part, it's a little unclear which
Speaker 1: of the Levy children wrote which pieces, which included poems, plays,
Speaker 1: short stories, and even some art and illustration, and it
Speaker 1: seems like at least in some cases, Amy Levy wrote,
Speaker 1: even at this young age, in multiple voices under multiple
Speaker 1: noms to plume. It contains also brief critiques of the
Speaker 1: included works, and one issue featured a notice that if
Speaker 1: a member of the club did not contribute, they would
Speaker 1: be fined us. I find all of this absolutely delightful.
Speaker 1: Over the years, these family magazines continued. They seemed like
Speaker 1: they may have have expanded to include the work of
Speaker 1: friends as well, but they also shifted in tone and
Speaker 1: quality as the children aged, and the magazine was given
Speaker 1: different names at different points in time. As a teenager
Speaker 1: of fifteen, Amy was enrolled at Brighton High School for Girls,
Speaker 1: which had its foundations in the women's rights movement. Brighton
Speaker 1: also offered primary school education for boys, and Amy's brothers,
Speaker 1: Alfred and Really, attended with her. Amy corresponded with her
Speaker 1: family regularly during this time because it was a school
Speaker 1: far from home, and her letters offer a glimpse in
Speaker 1: a very close family and at her enjoyment of boarding school.
Speaker 1: In a brief note to her father, she writes, quote,
Speaker 1: dear Papa, I have time before tea to write you
Speaker 1: a few lines so that you may not think I
Speaker 1: have forgotten you. I wish you would come down with
Speaker 1: Mama to see us. It is so very nice here.
Speaker 1: You would like to see St. Peter's old church. It
Speaker 1: is so curious and antique, But hints of depression also appear,
Speaker 1: which is something that echoes throughout her life. In one
Speaker 1: letter during this time, she mentions to her mother, quote,
Speaker 1: I have quite recovered from the blues, which was horrid
Speaker 1: of me to mention. But it's in her letters to
Speaker 1: her sister Katie that Amy is really unrestrained, and she
Speaker 1: shares her innermost thoughts with her sister. One aspect of
Speaker 1: these letters between sisters is what appears to be Amy
Speaker 1: Levy's casual mention of her romantic feelings for women. She mentions,
Speaker 1: in particular the school's headmistress, Ms. Creek, and refers to
Speaker 1: herself as the woman's quote wormy adorer, saying that she
Speaker 1: quote bagged a divine passion, inspiring whenever I think of it,
Speaker 1: Embraced today at the sanctum door. She continues this discussion
Speaker 1: of her crush, writing quote, I am more in love
Speaker 1: with her than ever, isn't it grim? I don't believe
Speaker 1: it will go for ages, and I can never care
Speaker 1: for anyone or anything else while it lasts. I make
Speaker 1: such different future pictures to what I used to. You
Speaker 1: married maternal with a tendency to laugh at the Plain
Speaker 1: High school mistress sister who grinds and lodges with chums
Speaker 1: and adores without return. These writings and others from her
Speaker 1: time at Brighton offer an image of a young woman
Speaker 1: who's really full of wit and opinions and creativity. In
Speaker 1: some she writes documents of imagined scenarios, sort of like forgeries,
Speaker 1: but she's not actually passing them off to anyone, such
Speaker 1: as letters between two people, neither of which are herself.
Speaker 1: She also was writing verse at this time, including a
Speaker 1: poem which was titled run to Death, and she wrote
Speaker 1: that when she was only fifteen. As this title suggests,
Speaker 1: run to Death is a grim story, all the more
Speaker 1: so for having been written by a teenager. It's subtitled
Speaker 1: a true Incident of pre Revolutionary French History, and features
Speaker 1: a hunting party of nobles who discover a surprising prey
Speaker 1: in the forest. When they look out at what's in
Speaker 1: the brush, they find that they're gazing quote at a
Speaker 1: something which is crawling with slow step from tree to tree.
Speaker 1: Is it some shadow phantom? Ghastly? No? A woman and child,
Speaker 1: swarthy woman with the gypsy written clear upon her face,
Speaker 1: gazing around her with wide eyes, dark and shadow fringed
Speaker 1: and wild, with the cowed suspicious glances of a persecuted race.
Speaker 1: Then they all, with unasked question in each other's faces, peer,
Speaker 1: for a common thought has struck them one their lips,
Speaker 1: dare scarcely say to Lord Gaston, cries impatient, Why regret
Speaker 1: the stately dear when such sport as Yonder offers quick
Speaker 1: unleashed the dogs away. The last lines of this poem
Speaker 1: described the huntsman having finished their cruel chase and killed
Speaker 1: the mother and her child, writing in silent shame back
Speaker 1: to the manor house, where they then tell the ladies
Speaker 1: there what a quote famous hunt they have had that day,
Speaker 1: without mention of what they'd actually done. This poem wasn't
Speaker 1: published until three years after it was written, when Victoria
Speaker 1: magazine picked it up. Amy continued to be a very
Speaker 1: productive writer as a teenager. When she was seventeen, she
Speaker 1: wrote a letter that was published in the Jewish Chronicle
Speaker 1: titled Jewish Women and Women's Rights. In it, themes that
Speaker 1: would continue into her professional career are apparent, as she
Speaker 1: advocated for professional opportunities for women. Coming up, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about. The poem became one of Levy's most
Speaker 1: famous works, even though it was written when she was
Speaker 1: still a teenager. But before we get into that, we
Speaker 1: will pause for a sponsor break. Amy wrote a poem
Speaker 1: while she was still a student at Brighton, right around
Speaker 1: the time that Run to Death came out, and this
Speaker 1: one conveyed the frustration of Victorian women by relaying the
Speaker 1: story of socrates marriage from the perspective of his wife,
Speaker 1: zan Tippi. Her name is also the title of the poem,
Speaker 1: and in this particular work, which was written as a
Speaker 1: dramatic monologue, Xantippi reflects on her life from her deathbed,
Speaker 1: and particularly mourns the promise of her youth, when she
Speaker 1: was so enthralled with intellectual pursuits, only to have that
Speaker 1: part of herself unwelcomed in the marriage. She wrote, yet
Speaker 1: maiden's mark. I would not that he thought I blame
Speaker 1: my Lord departed, for he meant no evil. So I
Speaker 1: take it to his wife. Twas only that the high philosopher,
Speaker 1: pregnant with noble theories and great thoughts, deigned not to
Speaker 1: stoop to touch so slight a thing as the fine
Speaker 1: fabric of a woman's brain, so subtle as a passionate
Speaker 1: woman's soul. I think if he had stooped a little
Speaker 1: and cared I might have risen nearer to his height,
Speaker 1: and not Lane shattered, neither fit for use as goodly
Speaker 1: household vessel, nor for that far finer thing which I
Speaker 1: had hoped to be. But like run to death, zan
Speaker 1: Tippi was not immediately published. The monologue was finished in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, not long before the eighteen year old
Speaker 1: Levy enrolled at Newnham College, a women's college at Cambridge University.
Speaker 1: This made her the first Jewish woman to attend Newnham
Speaker 1: and the second Jewish woman to attend Cambridge. It seems,
Speaker 1: based on some of her writing while she was there,
Speaker 1: that while she was feeling really elated it once seemed
Speaker 1: like a career opening up for her, she may not
Speaker 1: have exact really enjoyed her time at Cambridge, or at
Speaker 1: least the people who she encountered there. She wrote a
Speaker 1: verse play during this time, titled Reading that's set in
Speaker 1: sort of a fictionalized Cambridge and features characters named Professor
Speaker 1: Ego and Bob Bumptious, who seemed flum mixed by the
Speaker 1: women around them. But the men are not the only
Speaker 1: targets of her satire. She also has characters named Cornelia
Speaker 1: Connex and Janet Garend who ached to be intellectuals, and
Speaker 1: while everyone gets a dose of Levy sharp though comedic critique,
Speaker 1: it is ultimately men who get the harshest words for
Speaker 1: their quote, shallow sentiment, and their treatment of women. Her story,
Speaker 1: Leopold Lineager a study, features a main character really grappling
Speaker 1: with his Jewish identity, anti Semitism, and self loathing, and
Speaker 1: includes this line about his personal revelation quote. What stuns
Speaker 1: Leopold into despair is the recognition that one cannot stop
Speaker 1: being a Jew, that self transfer, nation, self reinvention is impossible.
Speaker 1: Another piece of writing from this time expresses frustration being
Speaker 1: a woman who was also a novelty at the university.
Speaker 1: Titled Lolly a Cambridge Sketch, The story is told through
Speaker 1: two characters. Lolly a daughter of a professor and wrote
Speaker 1: to a student, and together these two represent two very
Speaker 1: different modes of womanhood. Lolly is a traditional young woman
Speaker 1: and Rhota a scholar. Neither of them gets what they want.
Speaker 1: Lolly wants a marriage and love, but the object of
Speaker 1: her affection chooses Rhoda, and choosing to marry Rhoda has
Speaker 1: to give up her studies and access to intellectual fulfillment.
Speaker 1: Neither of these writings were published, and a lot of
Speaker 1: her writing during her years at Newnham similarly went unpublished.
Speaker 1: Much of it was discovered years and years and years later,
Speaker 1: written in notebooks, probably never intended for reviewer publication. A
Speaker 1: lot of her work, both published and unpublish, is from
Speaker 1: this time in her life reflects an artist kind of
Speaker 1: working through issues of identity and the ways in which
Speaker 1: choices to go down a certain direction in life mean
Speaker 1: that other options become unavailable. Similar to those themes in
Speaker 1: Lally at Cambridge Sketch, she sometimes wrote from the point
Speaker 1: of view of male protagonists, characters which, like Leopold, are
Speaker 1: usually filled with self loathing. In one Levy's first book,
Speaker 1: Zantippi and Other Verse, was published, and so at nineteen
Speaker 1: she was suddenly a well reviewed poet, lauded for her
Speaker 1: deft and nimble use of words. She also decided to
Speaker 1: leave school that year rather than complete her final year
Speaker 1: at Noonham. The reason for this decision is not known.
Speaker 1: Biographer Linda Hunt Beckman notes that a surviving fragment of
Speaker 1: a letter from earlier in the year mentions that Amy's
Speaker 1: recovering from something. It's not clear what, but it may
Speaker 1: have been some sort of breakdown or an intense depressive episode.
Speaker 1: That letter, though, indicates a plan to return to school
Speaker 1: for the summer term, and that's something that she did.
Speaker 1: In eight one. The women of Newnham College had also
Speaker 1: just been granted the chance to take the exams that
Speaker 1: were used to qualify students for a bachelor's degree at Cambridge.
Speaker 1: While this was a huge step forward, it also meant
Speaker 1: that attendees of Newnham had to take courses that were
Speaker 1: prescribed by the school, including ones that Amy was likely
Speaker 1: not very interested in. Levy wrote a news article about
Speaker 1: this transition and mentioned specifically the quote mathematical classes organized
Speaker 1: for unhappy people whose souls are yearning for Plato or mill.
Speaker 1: But she also released a book of poetry that had
Speaker 1: been very well received, so it's possible that she felt
Speaker 1: it was just time for her career as a writer
Speaker 1: to start in earnest. Yeah, apparently prior to that they
Speaker 1: could have kind of an unstructured, take what you want
Speaker 1: approach to their course load. And then when it was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I have required courses now, I could see hopping out
Speaker 1: at that point, But like I said, we don't know,
Speaker 1: but after Cambridge, Levy traveled around Europe, visiting Switzerland and
Speaker 1: Germany in particular, several times maintaining a home base of
Speaker 1: sorts in London with her parents. She did this for
Speaker 1: four years after leaving college, but she was still continuing
Speaker 1: her education in her own way, taking courses or lessons
Speaker 1: in various cities as opportunities and her interest intersected. She
Speaker 1: found work teaching German schoolboys English, but that job was
Speaker 1: really over before it started. Her mother forbade it as improper.
Speaker 1: She was, however, intent on making her own way financially,
Speaker 1: and it seems like there may have been a drop
Speaker 1: in the family's fortunes that magnified that desire. Throughout this time,
Speaker 1: she wrote to her family regularly, sharing her various experiences
Speaker 1: with them, often with the same biting which she used
Speaker 1: in her satirical writing. She was back home in London
Speaker 1: for most of eighteen eighty three, and although she lived
Speaker 1: with her parents during her time there, she was living
Speaker 1: an independent life. Most likely because of financial strain. Louis
Speaker 1: and Isabelle Levy moved from their home at Sussex Place,
Speaker 1: Regent's Park to Ulster Place, Regent's Park and then soon
Speaker 1: thereafter to a house in Bloomsbury. While this evidenced a
Speaker 1: downgrade in their lifestyle, it also put their residence in
Speaker 1: close proximity to the British Museum. Even before the family
Speaker 1: had moved so close to it, Amy was a frequent
Speaker 1: visitor at the British Museum's reading room and its lunch
Speaker 1: room for women. She met a variety of women who
Speaker 1: were tied to various progressive movements and social reforms, including
Speaker 1: the daughter of Karl Marx who was named Eleanor. Although
Speaker 1: she became friends with these women, it doesn't appear that
Speaker 1: she was ever drawn into their political efforts. Levy wrote
Speaker 1: about the reading room and an essay for Atlanta several
Speaker 1: years after this period of her life. That was in
Speaker 1: eighty nine, and it was titled Readers at the British Museum.
Speaker 1: Levy was also part of an intellectual social club in London,
Speaker 1: and members of her family sometimes attended the meetings where
Speaker 1: all manner of topics were discussed. The Levy sometimes even
Speaker 1: hosted the group in their own home, so it seems
Speaker 1: like she had a fairly stable system of friends and
Speaker 1: family at this point. She continued her impressive writing pace
Speaker 1: after zen Tippie's positive reception, and in eighteen eighty three
Speaker 1: she published Between Two Stools. In eighteen eighty four, there
Speaker 1: was Socratics in the Strand. Her melancholic work A Minor
Speaker 1: Poet and Other Verse was also published in eighteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: The contents of this book are really morose in tone.
Speaker 1: A lot of them were written while she was visiting Dresden,
Speaker 1: and zen Tippi is reprinted in this volume. In eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, Levy lived abroad for the winter in Florence,
Speaker 1: specifically where she traveled with one of her closest friends,
Speaker 1: feminist writer Clementina Black. Black wrote in letters during this
Speaker 1: time that Amy was getting well, which suggests she was
Speaker 1: once again in the midst of a decline in either
Speaker 1: her mental or physical health, or both. While in Florence,
Speaker 1: Amy worked as a correspondent for the Jewish Chronicle, covering
Speaker 1: Jewish life in Italy. In this position, which is usually
Speaker 1: discussed as a job that her father had used his
Speaker 1: connections to get for her, she wrote articles that were
Speaker 1: largely about Jewish identity from a cultural rather than religious standpoint,
Speaker 1: and this seems to have been as much an exploration
Speaker 1: of her own Jewish identity, as it was the identity
Speaker 1: of Italy's Jewish communities. One of the things that she
Speaker 1: felt tethered her to the Jewish community was a shared
Speaker 1: sense of humor, something she wrote about in an essay
Speaker 1: titled Jewish Humor for The Jewish Chronicle. While in Florence,
Speaker 1: Levy met Vernon Lee, also known as Violet Paget. We
Speaker 1: have an episode on her that as of when we're
Speaker 1: recording this, I'm planning to use as a Saturday Classic,
Speaker 1: but that's also some weeks from now, so if something
Speaker 1: happens Bump Bump, I'll see. Paget had started going by
Speaker 1: the name Vernon Lee as a team at that point,
Speaker 1: using a man's name and her writings in order to
Speaker 1: be taken more seriously. And there has been some speculation
Speaker 1: that maybe Lee and Amy Levy were in a relationship.
Speaker 1: While Vernon Lee resisted the label of lesbian in her
Speaker 1: life despite relationships with women, the nature of the relationship
Speaker 1: between Levy and Lee or Paget, which is what Levy
Speaker 1: called her, is not entirely certain. There was clearly a
Speaker 1: very deep emotional attachment on Levy's part. She wrote love
Speaker 1: poems titled to Vernon Lee and New Love, New Life,
Speaker 1: and she sent them to Paget, as well as correspondence
Speaker 1: that obviously conveys a very intense affection. She addresses all
Speaker 1: of her letters to my dear miss Paget and calls
Speaker 1: her quote an electric battery to me, suggesting that being
Speaker 1: with Paget is where her best creative energy comes from.
Speaker 1: When Leavy, after her return to London, wrote that she
Speaker 1: couldn't make it back to Florence as planned due to
Speaker 1: circumstances of others, most likely a family matter, as her
Speaker 1: brother Alfred was ill and passed around this time, Paget
Speaker 1: sent her a bouquet of flowers, which she then wrote
Speaker 1: about she was so touched by it. New Love, New
Speaker 1: Life is a relatively short poem, so we'll read the
Speaker 1: whole thing to give a sense of the verse that
Speaker 1: Amy was sending to Violet Paget. One she who so
Speaker 1: long has lain stone stiff with folded wings within my
Speaker 1: heart Again the brown bird wakes and sings, brown nightingale,
Speaker 1: whose strain is heard by day by night. She sings
Speaker 1: of joy and pain, of sorrow and delight. Two tis true,
Speaker 1: and other days have I unbarred the door. He knows
Speaker 1: the walks and ways. Love has been here before, Love
Speaker 1: blessed and love accursed was here in days long past.
Speaker 1: This time is not the first, but this time is
Speaker 1: the last. To Vernon Lee is similarly intimate. Although it's ending,
Speaker 1: Stanza suggests that perhaps Levy's feelings were unrequited, and that
Speaker 1: she knew that, or that she hoped that Paget would
Speaker 1: reassure her of some sort of reciprocation, writing quote, A
Speaker 1: snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach. You broke a branch
Speaker 1: and gave it to me. There I found for you
Speaker 1: a scarlet blossom rare thereby ran on of art and life,
Speaker 1: our speech, and of the gifts the gods had given
Speaker 1: each hope. Unto you and unto me despair. Regardless of
Speaker 1: whether Vernon Lee and Amy Levy were romantically connected, their
Speaker 1: friendship was pivotal to Levy because she, in turn became
Speaker 1: acquainted with a new group of creative intellectuals, though there
Speaker 1: were some that she had known before becoming friends with
Speaker 1: Violet Paget, and perhaps because of this new social set,
Speaker 1: the mid to late eighteen eighties were incredibly prolific for Levy,
Speaker 1: she wrote all lot. She wrote essays like Women in
Speaker 1: club Life and the Poetry of Christina Rosetti, and short stories,
Speaker 1: including at Prato and the recent Telepathic Occurrence at the
Speaker 1: British Museum. That last title served as a way to
Speaker 1: critique the many men who frequented the British Museum reading room,
Speaker 1: and we're openly hostile about women being there. And that
Speaker 1: male character is so engrossed in his work that he
Speaker 1: fails to witness an astonishing appearance of a specter near
Speaker 1: the card catalog, which is just right there in plain view.
Speaker 1: I sort of love that whole setup so much. Um.
Speaker 1: Up to this point, Amy Levy had not published any novels,
Speaker 1: although she had worked on at least one that she
Speaker 1: eventually abandoned. But her work as a novelist was significant
Speaker 1: and ultimately difficult in a variety of ways. And we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about that after we hear from the
Speaker 1: sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going.
Speaker 1: Though Levi's Poems and Tippy remains probably her most well
Speaker 1: known work, two novels written during this period of her
Speaker 1: life largely define her legacy. The first was titled Romance
Speaker 1: of a Shop and it is about women choosing unexpected
Speaker 1: life paths. Specifically, it tells the story of four sisters
Speaker 1: whose father dies, and the story opens just after the father, Mr. Lorimer,
Speaker 1: has passed and the four sisters, Fanny, Gertrude, Lucy and
Speaker 1: Phyllis are figuring out how they will survive as they
Speaker 1: have been left with nothing. The sisters decided to open
Speaker 1: a photography studio as a means to take care of
Speaker 1: themselves financially, and the plot involves a number of steps
Speaker 1: along the path to success for them, including taking post
Speaker 1: mortem photographs and photographing works of art. But the story
Speaker 1: is really about the lives of the women involved, the
Speaker 1: choices they make, and their relationship with the men that
Speaker 1: they love. This was well reviewed and it established Levy
Speaker 1: as a novelist. After the publication of Romance of a Shop,
Speaker 1: Levy visited Florence once again, and she wrote during this
Speaker 1: time about a personal melancholy, a heartache over a breakup,
Speaker 1: which is considered to have likely been the writer Dorothy Blomfield,
Speaker 1: who was another member of Vernon Lee's circle. In January
Speaker 1: eight nine, Levy's novel Reuben Sacks was published. This book
Speaker 1: quickly became a problem in its reception. The plot revolves
Speaker 1: around the titular character that's a lawyer who experienced a
Speaker 1: nervous collapse, went away to recuperate, and then returns to
Speaker 1: London as the book opens. Although he falls in love
Speaker 1: with his cousin Judith, he ultimately rejects her in favor
Speaker 1: of a more lucrative match. Judith makes a socially smart
Speaker 1: match after losing Reuben, and the novel examines themes of
Speaker 1: love and expectation, of Jewish families working to fit into
Speaker 1: English society, and of a woman's place and her barriers
Speaker 1: to fulfillment. Jewish critics really felt that Levy's work of
Speaker 1: prose was a harsh criticism of Jewish life and that
Speaker 1: it was riddled with stereotypes. Gentile readers seemed to feel
Speaker 1: that it validated every negative stereotype about Jews and saw
Speaker 1: it as a sort of expose a from within the community,
Speaker 1: and others seemed to just wonder why Amy Levy was
Speaker 1: so unkind to the Jewish community. A review in The
Speaker 1: Guardian from January eight nine questioned whether Levy's characterization of
Speaker 1: Jewish culture wasn't too harsh, opening with quote Jewish writers
Speaker 1: cannot be charged with blind partiality to their race. We
Speaker 1: have lately had some very pungent description of Jewish foibles,
Speaker 1: and here is another picture which gentiles may be permitted
Speaker 1: to hope is too cruel for truthfulness, too highly colored
Speaker 1: to be just. After all, many of the failings which
Speaker 1: miss Levy attributes to her people are common to a
Speaker 1: rich and vulgar middle class, who have a certain jealousy
Speaker 1: of the class above them because they admire it and
Speaker 1: despair of reaching it. Yeah. Yeah, this is kind of
Speaker 1: one of those everybody's kind of a jerk in some way.
Speaker 1: It's not this shouldn't be about Jewish people. Um. Another
Speaker 1: review that was in the Morning Post read quote, there
Speaker 1: are a few things more disappointing than to feel as
Speaker 1: with the smallest critical faculty, one must that the author
Speaker 1: of Reuben Sachs has just missed producing a really clever work.
Speaker 1: Ms Levy breaks comparatively new ground in this book, the
Speaker 1: personages of which are almost without exception, taken from the
Speaker 1: Jewish community in London, which, by the way, can scarcely
Speaker 1: be flattered by the rather two somber glasses through which
Speaker 1: she elects to view it. Levy's novel was a response
Speaker 1: to George Eliot's eighteen seventies six novel Daniel Deronda, which
Speaker 1: she felt had romanticized Jews in a deeply unrealistic way.
Speaker 1: So she had set out to write a novel which
Speaker 1: showed that Jews, like all other humans, are complex, with
Speaker 1: both strong and weak points of character. But few readers,
Speaker 1: at least initially received it that way, and many Jewish
Speaker 1: publications were frank in their assessment that, regardless of what
Speaker 1: she intended, her work had the potential to be damaging
Speaker 1: to their culture within the larger field of London. When
Speaker 1: Ruben Sacks came out, Levy was in Paris. She soon
Speaker 1: returned to her parents home in London a few days
Speaker 1: after the first bad reviews came out, and it may
Speaker 1: seem as though she was hiding out, But while she
Speaker 1: may have sought some comfort in the family home, she
Speaker 1: was also working on another novel titled Miss Meredith, which
Speaker 1: she completed in just six weeks. Ms Meredith was not
Speaker 1: so ambitious as Ruben Sacks, and it was written to
Speaker 1: appeal to a wider audience. It tells the story of
Speaker 1: a young english woman named Elsie Meredith, who moves to
Speaker 1: Italy for a governess job, and there is a fairly
Speaker 1: predictable romance plot with the family's adult son. Le v
Speaker 1: had a lot of social engagements in eighteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: She visited with her siblings and their children regularly, and
Speaker 1: she met up with Vernon Lee Ruben Sacks was controversial initially,
Speaker 1: but it also made her famous and she made a
Speaker 1: lot of new, high profile friends. The short story Cohen
Speaker 1: of Trinity came out in May of eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and it kind of reads as a reflection of the
Speaker 1: turmoil in Levy's own professional life with the fallout from
Speaker 1: Reuben Sacks. It is told from the point of view
Speaker 1: of a gentile narrator, describing the character Cohen in very
Speaker 1: stereotypical and anti Semitic terms. In this exaggerated lens, Levy
Speaker 1: offers an insight into the impossibility of representing Jewish life
Speaker 1: and culture. Here, the narrator is doing what she was
Speaker 1: accused of doing in Reuben Sacks, and the contrast is obvious.
Speaker 1: She also includes the character of Leopold Lineager from her
Speaker 1: early work as an example of an anglicized Jew who
Speaker 1: finds Cohen as alien. As the gentile Rader does like Levy,
Speaker 1: Cohen in this story has written a book that made
Speaker 1: him famous, but that is deeply misunderstood. Levy also assembled
Speaker 1: another book of poetry in eighty nine that was A
Speaker 1: London Plane, Tree and Other Verse. It was dedicated to
Speaker 1: her friend Clementina Black. Three of the poems were definitely
Speaker 1: written in April and May of that year, as reflected
Speaker 1: in her calendar, but it's unclear when she wrote the
Speaker 1: other poems. These works reflect a writer who feels somewhat lost,
Speaker 1: perhaps and definitely exhausted. The poem End of Day ends
Speaker 1: with the lines, oh, sweeter far than strain and stress
Speaker 1: is the slow creeping weariness, and better far than thought.
Speaker 1: I find the drowsy blankness of the mind more than
Speaker 1: all joys of soul or sense. Is this divine indifference,
Speaker 1: where grief a shadow grows to be, and peace a possibility.
Speaker 1: On September nine, Levy died by suicide. Her cause of
Speaker 1: death was recorded as asphyxia from the inhalation of carbonic
Speaker 1: oxide gas from the burning of charcoal. She had seen
Speaker 1: her sister, Katie and Katie's family just a few days
Speaker 1: before her death, and then it spent the next several
Speaker 1: days alone before ending her life. Her body was cremated
Speaker 1: and interred at Balls Pond Cemetery, a London plane tree
Speaker 1: and other verse. Although it was completed had not yet
Speaker 1: been published when she died, it was released shortly after that.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes tempting to point to the negative reviews of
Speaker 1: Ruben Sacks as the catalyst for this tragedy, but really,
Speaker 1: like anyone, Levy was dealing with a lot more than that.
Speaker 1: She had struggled with her personal life, harboring a belief
Speaker 1: that she was unattractive and couldn't find a lasting, fulfilling relationship.
Speaker 1: She also had hearing loss and that had progressed, and
Speaker 1: of course she had depression throughout her life. That's come
Speaker 1: up several times during the episode. Yeah. One of the
Speaker 1: most telling pieces of writing about Amy Levy from her
Speaker 1: contemporaries is a sort of memorial obituary penned by Oscar
Speaker 1: Wilde for Women's World volume three, which wild edited and
Speaker 1: which Amy had written for. He wrote very honestly of
Speaker 1: her work that he felt might be lacking, but also
Speaker 1: praised her deeply, writing especially glowing words about her fiction.
Speaker 1: Quote MS. Levies two novels, The Romance of a Shop
Speaker 1: and Reuben Sacks were both published last year. The first
Speaker 1: is a bright and clever story full of sparkling touches.
Speaker 1: The second is a novel that probably no other writer
Speaker 1: could have produced. Its directness, it's uncompromising truth, its depth
Speaker 1: of feeling, and above all its absence of any single
Speaker 1: superfluous word, make it in some sort a classic. Like
Speaker 1: all her best work, it is sad, but the sadness
Speaker 1: is by no means morbid. The strong undertone of moral
Speaker 1: earnestness never preached, gives the stability and force to the
Speaker 1: vivid portraiture, and prevents the satiric touches from the generating
Speaker 1: into mere malice. Truly, the book is an achievement to write.
Speaker 1: Thus at six and twenty is given to very few,
Speaker 1: and from the few thus endowed, their readers may safely
Speaker 1: hope for yet greater things later on. But later on
Speaker 1: has not come for the writer of Reuben Sachs, and
Speaker 1: the world must forego the full fruition of her power.
Speaker 1: The loss is the world's, but perhaps not hers. She
Speaker 1: was never robust, not often actually ill, but seldom well
Speaker 1: enough to feel life a joy instead of a burden,
Speaker 1: And her work was not poured out lightly, but drawn
Speaker 1: drop by drop from the very depth of her own feeling.
Speaker 1: We may say of it that it was, in truth
Speaker 1: her life's blood. In the weeks following Levy's death, there
Speaker 1: was speculation about what had led her to take her
Speaker 1: own life that circulated in the press. A lot of
Speaker 1: theories were repeated as facts, and finally, her friend Clementine A.
Speaker 1: Black stept in to try to set the records straight.
Speaker 1: She wrote to the athena Um quote, will you spare
Speaker 1: me a few lines? In order to do justice both
Speaker 1: to the dead and the living. I have lately learned
Speaker 1: that various reports, some exaggerated and some holly untrue, have
Speaker 1: been made in various papers concerning the late miss Amy Levy,
Speaker 1: and are being largely copied by the provincial press. I
Speaker 1: was a close friend of miss Levy for many years,
Speaker 1: and my testimony is out of personal knowledge. It is
Speaker 1: not true that she never left her father's house otherwise
Speaker 1: than on visits to friends or holiday journeys, nor that
Speaker 1: she suffered from failing eyesight, nor from the loss of
Speaker 1: her sense of humor, nor that she devoted herself to
Speaker 1: work in the East End. She did suffer for several
Speaker 1: years from slight deafness and from fits of extreme depression,
Speaker 1: the result not of unhappy circumstances or of unkind treatment, but,
Speaker 1: as those believe who know her best, her lack of
Speaker 1: physical robustness and the exhaustion produced by strenuous rain work
Speaker 1: most emphatically. It is not true that her family or
Speaker 1: her personal friends among the Jewish community treated her coldly
Speaker 1: on account of the publication of Ruben Sacks, and thus
Speaker 1: indirectly hastened her death. Her parents were justly proud of her.
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine anything which would have caused more pain
Speaker 1: and indignation to Miss Levy than the circulation of such reports,
Speaker 1: and it is in her name that I make this
Speaker 1: protest against them. After Levy's death, her family and in
Speaker 1: particular her sisters, tried to ensure that her work would
Speaker 1: not be forgotten. As late as nineteen thirty two, her
Speaker 1: sister Katie reached out to publisher McMillan to see if
Speaker 1: there was any interest in Amy's unpublished work. So for
Speaker 1: a long time her work faded from view, but in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen nineties her papers were auctioned and became
Speaker 1: publicly available. Soon after and that really started a new
Speaker 1: wave of interest in her work. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: I had this random conversation with my friend Bernadette which
Speaker 1: led to this episode. Yeah, I've got things to tack
Speaker 1: about on that front and behind menes. Yes, um listen
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a downer since she was
Speaker 1: We didn't mention it specifically, but she was not quite
Speaker 1: twenty eight when she died, so very young. Um and
Speaker 1: so I thought I would do two pretty light listener
Speaker 1: males that are very to me, funny and sweet. One
Speaker 1: is from our listener Mickey, and it is from our
Speaker 1: episode about the Exorcism case which inspired The Exorcist, and
Speaker 1: he said, let me start out by saying, love your show.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share my first experience with the movie
Speaker 1: The Exorcist. At the time the movie came out, I
Speaker 1: was nine years old. My parents wanted to go to
Speaker 1: a drive in movie double feature to see The Exorcist
Speaker 1: and could not find a babysitter, so they took me along.
Speaker 1: They let me watch the first feature, The Abominable Dr Phebes,
Speaker 1: but did not want me to see The Exorcist, so
Speaker 1: they made me lay down in the back seat. I
Speaker 1: can tell you from personal experience that the sound of
Speaker 1: the Exorcist is absolutely terrifying. Thank you for such an
Speaker 1: entertaining and informative podcast. UM. I believe it because that movie,
Speaker 1: I said in the episode, some of the best sound
Speaker 1: design ever, and it is terrifying. So um, but it
Speaker 1: will stick with Mickey forever, I'm sure. Our other email
Speaker 1: UM is from our listener Steve and writes, Hi, Holly
Speaker 1: and Tracy, I really enjoy your show and it keeps
Speaker 1: me company on my drive to and from work. I
Speaker 1: often bring home interesting tidbits from the show to chat
Speaker 1: about during dinner. One of my favorite websites has daily
Speaker 1: posts that bring forward eclectic mixes of art, science, and
Speaker 1: exceptional photography. November one, it posted a video created by
Speaker 1: someone who took out the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: and replaced it with a large black cat. It made
Speaker 1: me laugh, and I hope it does the same for you,
Speaker 1: and he sends the link. I have seen it. My
Speaker 1: husband and I watched it about one hundred times, marveling
Speaker 1: at how good it was for just a spoofy video,
Speaker 1: and laughing and laughing and laughing because it's really quite
Speaker 1: good and Uh. Steve mentions if you're worried about hyper lengths,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, but um and that he has
Speaker 1: no affiliation with them, but small joys is what life
Speaker 1: is all about. And I couldn't agree more. And then
Speaker 1: the real reason I wanted to read this he attest
Speaker 1: a photo of Jackson, our devon rex. He is a
Speaker 1: cuddler who loves to play with paperballs and hair elastics.
Speaker 1: Keep safe, Steve, I, UM, I love a Devon rex.
Speaker 1: I'm not a breed obsessive person, but if if I am,
Speaker 1: that's the breed of cat that I love. Um. All
Speaker 1: the Rexis are cute, but there's nothing like a devon
Speaker 1: and they are usually very cuddly and very hilarious. So
Speaker 1: thank you both to Mickey and Steve for writing us
Speaker 1: those funny emails. I am still gazing at this cat
Speaker 1: and his little broken whiskers, which I adore. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us, you can do
Speaker 1: so at History Podcast at i heeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us as Missed in History Everywhere
Speaker 1: on social media. If you would like to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the show and you haven't done that yet, we've made
Speaker 1: it super easy You can do that on the IHR
Speaker 1: radio app or any where you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H