Lucretia Maria Davidson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lucretia Maria Davidson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | September 27, 1808 Plattsburgh, New York |
| Died | August 27, 1825 Plattsburgh, New York |
| Occupation | Poet |
Lucretia Maria Davidson (September 27, 1808 - August 27, 1825) was an American poet of the early 19th century.
She was born in Plattsburgh, New York on September 27, 1808. Her father, Oliver Davidson, was a physician, and her mother, Margaret Miller, was an author. She was sent at the age of four to Plattsburg Academy, where she learned to read, later developing an interest in such authors as Oliver Goldsmith and William Shakespeare. She learned to write at age seven. Davidson was an extremely precocious child, and she wrote her first known poem, Epitaph on a Robin, at the age of nine. Davidson died at Plattsburgh on August 27, 1825, at the age of 16 years and 11 months of tuberculosis, then known as consumption, although it has been speculated that her condition may have been linked to anorexia nervosa.[1] Davidson wrote prolifically in her short life, and her surviving poems, of various lengths, number 278.
Davidson was praised, with varying levels of enthusiasm, by such notable figures as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Southey, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Sedgwick wrote a biographical sketch which was included with Davidson's Poetical Remains, and Desbordes-Valmore wrote an ode to her.
Southey's influential, romanticizing 1829 study of her, which compared Davidson to Thomas Chatterton and Henry Kirke White, greatly enhanced her reputation. Southey also remarked upon her personal beauty: "In person she was exceedingly beautiful. Her forehead was high, open, and fair as infancy; her eyes large, dark, and of that soft beaming expression which shews the soul in the glance."[2] Poe was critical of Southey's role in the creation of the romantic 'myth' of Davidson, noting the distinction in quality between her 'poetic soul' and the actual quality of her output.[3] Davidson's sister, Margaret Miller Davidson, was also a noted and published poet; she too died of consumption in her teens and was praised posthumously. Her brother, Levi P. Davidson, was a lieutenant in the US army.
