![]() ![]() ![]() In 1710 she translated the Enchiridion of the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus from Latin and sent a copy to Bishop Gilbert Brunet with a long letter defending women's right to formal education.Īlthough Montagu imitated other classical sources, the influence of Ovid is particularly evident in her juvenilia and also in her later poetry. ![]() ![]() Her earliest poetic endeavors were based on Roman sources and carefully transcribed in manuscript volumes, the most complete of which she titled "The Entire Works of Clarinda" (collected by Grundy in her Ph.D. However, denied a classical education because she was a woman, she was educated at home and taught herself Latin in her father's library. Montagu's early influences were the same as those of her male contemporaries: the classics, John Dryden, and French romances. Her father became earl of Kingston the year after her birth. Montagu was born on, the first daughter of Evelyn and Mary Pierrepont. Best known as a letter writer, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote verses all her life and frequently referred to herself as a "poet." From the young girl, as she later described herself, "trespassing" in Latin and Greek sources to the old woman haunted "by the Daemon of Poesie" (as quoted by Isobel Grundy in Essays and Poems, 1977), Montagu repeatedly turned to the forms of Augustan verse-satires, verse epistles, mock epics, translations, essays, ballads, and songs-to respond to events around her and, indirectly, to give public form to her private feelings. ![]()
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