ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Adelaide Procter’s response to and negotiation of Bryan Procter’s authority and influence as a poet. It focuses on Procter’s narrative poem ‘A Legend of Provence’ which is considered in relation to Bryan Procter’s poem ‘The Girl of Provence.’ In biographical material there are very few references to Bryan Procter’s specific views of his daughter’s poetry, but he appeared to encourage and applaud her writing. Bryan Procter had apparently taken to the ‘shade’ early on in his poetic career when he married Anne Skepper and concentrated his energies on his work as a lawyer and Commissioner for Lunacy. In Bryan Procter’s poetry there is evidence of a struggle to articulate extremely painful and disturbing emotions along with the desire to escape from and obliterate them. In ‘Michael Angelo’, one of Procter’s ‘Four Dramatic Scenes,’ this struggle takes the form of a dialogue between Angelo and Raffaelle.
