Lost Lands: Metaphors of Sexual Awakening in Edith Wharton's Poetry, 1908–1909

During the first year of her affair with Morton Fullerton, Edith Wharton wrote three long poems that were meditations, in metaphoric form, on the meaning and consequences of her sexual awakening. The first, “Life,” written after the initial heady spring of 1908, presents a reedpipe’s account of its transformation at the hands of “Life,” climaxing in an encounter with the god Love. The second, a set of eight sonnets entitled “The Mortal Lease” and written the following fall, carries out a melancholy dialogue with an imagined lover about the doctrine of the Moment. The third, from the spring of 1909, elaborates an episode from Joseph Bédier’s retelling of the Tristan and Iseult story in which the hermit Ogrin meets the illicit lovers in the forest. ¹ In each case an encounter with sexuality is the central theme; in each case Wharton confronts the impact of sexuality on her artistic voice. ²