translations. He contributed regularly to the Quarterly Review, sup­ ported an extended family group, and was made Poet Laureate in 1813, although his verse was never as highly regarded as his prose. His ‘Vision of Judgement’, 1821, for example, was famously and devastatingly parodied by Byron. His posthumous reputation has not fared as well as that of his illustrious contemporaries, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley. The simple epitaph of his second wife is significant less for what it divulges of provincial social snobbery than for what it omits of her own unique achievement. Reading ‘gaps’ has long been recognised as a necessary part of the project of recuperating forgotten women writers, and it holds true for their lives as much as for their works. Yet to a large extent Caroline Bowles Southey contributed to her own neglect by her long-standing inability to take herself seriously as a writer, and more particularly as a poet, which was where her gift really lay. William Wordsworth is perhaps the supreme example of the opposite: he looks into his heart and finds -a Poet.3 Even Southey, a far lesser poet than Wordsworth, sanguinely proposed for himself the following epitaph:

DOI link for translations. He contributed regularly to the Quarterly Review, sup­ ported an extended family group, and was made Poet Laureate in 1813, although his verse was never as highly regarded as his prose. His ‘Vision of Judgement’, 1821, for example, was famously and devastatingly parodied by Byron. His posthumous reputation has not fared as well as that of his illustrious contemporaries, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley. The simple epitaph of his second wife is significant less for what it divulges of provincial social snobbery than for what it omits of her own unique achievement. Reading ‘gaps’ has long been recognised as a necessary part of the project of recuperating forgotten women writers, and it holds true for their lives as much as for their works. Yet to a large extent Caroline Bowles Southey contributed to her own neglect by her long-standing inability to take herself seriously as a writer, and more particularly as a poet, which was where her gift really lay. William Wordsworth is perhaps the supreme example of the opposite: he looks into his heart and finds -a Poet.3 Even Southey, a far lesser poet than Wordsworth, sanguinely proposed for himself the following epitaph:

translations. He contributed regularly to the Quarterly Review, sup­ ported an extended family group, and was made Poet Laureate in 1813, although his verse was never as highly regarded as his prose. His ‘Vision of Judgement’, 1821, for example, was famously and devastatingly parodied by Byron. His posthumous reputation has not fared as well as that of his illustrious contemporaries, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley. The simple epitaph of his second wife is significant less for what it divulges of provincial social snobbery than for what it omits of her own unique achievement. Reading ‘gaps’ has long been recognised as a necessary part of the project of recuperating forgotten women writers, and it holds true for their lives as much as for their works. Yet to a large extent Caroline Bowles Southey contributed to her own neglect by her long-standing inability to take herself seriously as a writer, and more particularly as a poet, which was where her gift really lay. William Wordsworth is perhaps the supreme example of the opposite: he looks into his heart and finds -a Poet.3 Even Southey, a far lesser poet than Wordsworth, sanguinely proposed for himself the following epitaph: