Tracing the Earth: Narratives of Personal and Geological History in Charlotte Smith'sBeachy Head

Abstract

This essay explores how Charlotte Smith transports lines and themes from her Elegiac Sonnets (1784–1800) to transform her narrative of personal history in her final poem, Beachy Head (1807). While her personal history is inextricably connected to her relationship with the land in both works, Beachy Head offers a version of her history that is embedded in a much wider context of the geological history of the landscape. This prompts a reflection on the telling and reading of histories that complicates and recasts Smith's representation of both herself and the land, as she recognizes both to be dynamic.