Anne Bannerman was a Scottish poet.

Life

She was born in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 to Isobel (née Dick) and William Bannerman, a "running stationer" licensed to sell ballads in the streets. She was part of the Edinburgh literary circle which included John Leyden

John Leyden

John Leyden was a British orientalist.-Biography:Leyden was born at Denholm on the River Teviot, not far from Hawick. His father, a shepherd, had contrived to send him to Edinburgh University to study for the ministry...

, Jessie Stewart, and Thomas Campbell, and "remains significant for her Gothic ballads, as well as for her innovative sonnet series and her bold original odes."

Bannerman's early work was published, often pseudonymously, in periodicals, notably the Monthly Magazine, the Poetical Register, and the Edinburgh Magazine, the latter of which was edited by her friend and supporter, Robert Anderson

Robert Anderson

-Arts and entertainment:*Robert Anderson , Scottish literary scholar and editor*Robert Rowand Anderson , Scottish architect*Robert Alexander Anderson , American composer...

. She was read and admired by Thomas Park

Thomas Park (antiquarian)

Thomas Park was an English antiquary and bibliographer, also known as a literary editor.-Life:He was the son of parents who lived at East Acton, Middlesex...

, James Currie, Bishop Thomas Percy, Anne Grant

Anne Grant

Anne Grant was a Scottish poet and author.She was born in Glasgow, and in 1779 married the Rev. James Grant, minister of Laggan, Invernessshire. She published in 1802 a volume of poems. She also wrote Letters from the Mountains, and Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlands...

, and antiquary Joseph Cooper Walker. Her first volume, Poems (1800), was well regarded but did not sell well. It contains a series of odes

Odes

Odes may refer to:*The plural of ode, a type of poem*Odes , a collection of poems by the Roman author Horace, circa 65 - 8 BC*Odes of Solomon, a pseudepigraphic book of the Bible*Book of Odes , a Deuterocanonical book of the Bible...

, original sonnets, a sonnet series

Sonnet sequence

A sonnet sequence is a group of sonnets thematically unified to create a long work, although generally, unlike the stanza, each sonnet so connected can also be read as a meaningful separate unit....

 translated from Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

, and another based on The Sorrows of Werther. In these two latter Bannerman developed Joanna Baillie

Joanna Baillie

Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and dramatist. Baillie was very well known during her lifetime and, though a woman, intended her plays not for the closet but for the stage. Admired both for her literary powers and her sweetness of disposition, she hosted a brilliant literary society in her...

's theory of dramatic composition — her stated intent to focus on the progress of one master passion — and applied it to poetry. Her second collection, Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802) was published anonymously. It consisted of ten Gothic ballads and four engravings, and did not fare so well with reviewers, in part because of her penchant for the strain of obscurity and abiguity within the Gothic tradition.. Her ballads were, however, praised by Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

.

After the deaths of her mother and brother she struggled financially, and was a governess for a period despite precarious health. Although various of her friends supported her and attempted to procure her a pension, such attempts were largely unsuccessful and she died in debt. Contemporary scholars are rediscovering her work and she is the subject of several recent studies.

Publications

• Poems (Edinburgh: Mundel/London:Longman, 1800), including "The Mermaid,""The Genii," "The Nun," and "Ode: the Spirit of the Air"
• "Epistle from the Marquis de Lafayette to General Washington" (attrib. 1800)
• Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (pub. anon., Vernor and Hood, 1802) (Etext, British Women Romantic Poets Project).
• Poems: a New Edition (pub. by subscription, 1807), including "To Miss Baillie"

Resources

• "Bannerman, Anne (1765-1829)." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Virginia Blain, et al., eds. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. 56-57.
• Craciun, Adriana. "Anne Bannerman: A Critical Introduction." Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period. 2005.
• Craciun, Adriana. “Bannerman, Anne (1765–1829).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 28 Mar. 2007.

External links

• Crone-Romanovski, Mary, Sharon Estes, and Robi Rhodes. Anne Bannerman.