Susanna Blamire
Muse of Cumberland (1747-1794)
Susanna Blamire was a Scottish poet and writer who was widely known as "The Muse of Cumberland". She was born sometime in the year 1747 to a well-to-do Cumberland family and it wasn't until the year 1842 that her poems were collected and published. One of the most outstanding features of Blamire's work was the truth and liveliness in which she depicted Cumbrian life and society in those days.
Although Blamire's work was never published during her lifetime, the poetry and songs that she wrote to distribute among her close friends and relatives have withstood the test of time. Many of her works did appear in prominent songbooks of the time period although they were typically published as unsigned works.
Much of what is known about Blamire's literary work is due to the efforts of Patrick Maxwell and Henry Lonsdale who took on the formidable task of collecting and publishing Blamire's body of work in the year 1842. Maxwell and Lonsdale both grew up in Cumberland where Blamire resided for most of her life. It was in Cumberland that Blamire's songs and poetry have become an integral part of the local culture and these have been handed down many times from generation to generation.
Although Blamire's work has been well integrated into Cumbrian culture, the actual act of collecting the diverse body of work was a somewhat difficult task. As a means to accomplishing this end, Maxwell and Lonsdale turned to the personal collection of Robert Anderson, a poet who lived after Blamire and maintained a high regard for her work. Maxwell and Lonsdale were also able to gather more examples of Blamire's poetry from her own friends and family who were in possession of a few copies of her work.
In the course of gathering Blamire's work, Maxwell and Lonsdale also used many of the same resources to glean details of the poet's personal life. All their efforts finally came to fruition in the publishing of The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire, "the Muse of Cumberland, in 1842.
Another collection of Susanna Blamire's work appeared several years later in 1866 with the publication of Songs and Poems by Miss Blamire Together with Songs by her Friend Miss Gilpin, by Sidney Gilpin. Gilpin who was an avid admirer of Blamire, fervently believed that Susanna's true calling was the art of song writing and he considered her the most important literary figure that ever came out of Cumberland aside from William Wordsworth.
Susanna Blamire was a resident of Scotland for a period of six years beginning in 1761 during which time she was heavily influenced by the immense popularity of Scottish dialect songs all over Europe. So telling was the Scottish influence on Blamire that she was moved to begin writing songs in the Scottish dialect and these Scottish songs would later make up the majority of her dialect songs with the Cumbrian dialect ones coming in at second.
Blamire is perhaps best known for her Scottish song "And Ye Shall Walk in Silk Attire".
Original Authors: Doods Pangburn
Edit Update Authors: M.A.Harris
Updated On: 16/05/2008
