In 1725 Eliza Haywood published Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to
the Kingdom of Utopia, in which she verbally attacks Martha Fowkes and
Martha Blunt, who were both close friends of Alexander Pope and Richard Savage.
While the relationship between Savage and Haywood was complicated, it is assumed
that they were lovers and that one of Haywood's illegitimate children was his. Martha
Fowkes is also reupted to have been Savage's lover, which is likely a reason for
Haywood's assault. After this the "popular perception of Haywood as a libidinous,
scandalous, immodest woman actively circulated" (King 266).
Richard Savage wrote about Haywood in The Authors of the Town 1725 in which
he casts her as a woman scorned, publically calling her out, making fun of her
literature, acting, and play writing
skills:
"A Cast off Dame, who if intrigues can judge,
Writes scandal in Romance --- A Printer's Drudge!
Flush'd with Success, for Stage-Renown she pants,
And melts, and swells, and pens luxurious Rants."
In 1728 Alexander Pope takes this criticism to a personal level in his poem The
Dunciad:
"See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd
Two babes of love clinging to her waste;
Fair as before her works she stands confess'd
In flow'rs and pearls by bounteous Kirkhall dress'd.
The Goddess then: "Who best can send on high
The salient spout, far-streaming to the sky:
His be yon Juno of majestic size,
With cow like udders, and with ox-like eyes." "
Pope takes the focus off of her writing and into her personal life by proclaiming her
two children to be illegitimate, which is something that a woman stepping into the
public sphere would expect. This poem describes a pissing contest between two well
known producers of the time. Haywood is first place prize, the second place prize is
a chamber pot. Pope uses sexual overtones, "conflating what he viewed as her sexual
promiscuity with her 'textual promiscuity" (Fowler 7). By making the chamber pot and
Haywood both prizes in a pissing contest he is in fact stating that women are merely
powerless vessels which men fill with their various execretions (Fowler 8). Pope's
footnotes in The Dunciad also show a disapproval of women stepping outside the
boundaries constructed by a male patriarchal society.
"In this game is expos'd in the most contemptous manner, the profligate
licentiousness of those shameless Scribblers (for the most part of That sex, which
ought least to be capable of such malice or impudence) who in libelous Memoirs and
Novels, reveal the faults and misfortunes of both sexes, to the ruin or disturbance, of
public fame or private happiness"
An intersesting quote about this issue is written by Catherine Ingrassia:
"Pope figures Eliza Haywood as the nexus of his anxieties concerning the feminization
of culture ... She manifests what Pope percieves as a threat to the existing social
order ... Although Pope renders her silent and passive in his portrait (unwittingly)
validates her position and her work's powerful appeal. Pope capitalizes on the
recognized currency she has established and exploits her authorial persona for his
own gain. Attempting to present her as the literary void against which other
morerespectable (and typically male) writers are measured, Pope reveals her
centrality within the cultural landscape" (Ignassia 77).
Eliza Haywood's presence in this poem proves her level of popularity in this time
period.
For further learning please read (UNBSJ Student ID required):
Richard Savage's The Authors of the Town (1725)
King, Kathryn. "New Contexts for Early Novels by Women: The Case of Eliza Haywood, Aaron Hill, and the Hillarians, 1719-1725." A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture. Catherine Ingrassia and Paula Backschnieder, Eds. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
This is availble in the UNB Libraries, Saint John.
