ABSTRACT
The allusions and quotations embedded in Helen Maria Williams's Julia, a novel interspersed with poetical pieces display a depth and breadth of literary knowledge. In Julia, written shortly before her move to Paris, Williams's literary and artistic engagement is traceable through London's Bluestocking intellectual circles and Drury Lane theatrical activities, back to her Welsh and Scottish background, even as she looks forward to France. Williams's heroine Julia is first and foremost a poet, like her creator, and the verse Williams intersperses throughout her novel, especially the richly intertextual literary manifesto, 'An Address to Poetry', presents a delightful challenge to the modern editor. Helen Maria Williams admired Siddons from at least the mid-1780s onwards, and she included a sonnet dedicated to the actress in her 1786 Poems. Williams's sonnet to Siddons combines the passionate Petrarchan form's octave plus sestet with the closing couplet of a Shakespearean sonnet.
