Dangers of Credulity: Mary Robinson and the Trope of Victimization

A prodigious professional poet admired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; a courtesan idealized for her unparalleled beauty; a famed actress and mistress to royalty known to live beyond her means in an era of exploding print culture: Mary Robinson found herself portrayed incongruously in motley of mediums. While the leading portrait artists of the day, Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, were painting dazzling portraits of Mrs. Robinson, she found herself lampooned in the satirical cartoons of James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson. The multifarious representations of Mary Robinson seem an apt commentary on her tumultuous life. Intriguing in their own right, these depictions present even more interesting issues. How did Mary Robinson respond to the images? How have these visual artists shaped our reception of Mary Robinson as an artist? How did the schism between the representations affect Robinson's art and own self-image?

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts in English (M.A.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Literature and Philosophy

Year dc:date.available

2007

Author dc:creator

• Kozee, Jeffrey Paul

Contributors dc:contributor

• Candy Schille
• Gautam Kundu

• ETD
• Robinson
• Mary
• Victim
• Self-image
• Satirical cartoons
• Portraits
• Authors
• English
• Victims in literature

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/168

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1168