This dissertation explores representation of older age in the lyric poetry of Romantic women writers. Key themes in this study are the use of memory, relationships and community which reject the foreclosure and decline narrative of old age. This is consistent with the lyric, which focuses on introspection, emotion, and memory. Though typically a self-orientated form, the lyric has provided a foundation for exploring human connectivity and the self in relation to wider community. Historically situated after dressing-table narratives, the lyric offers an opportunity for the female voice to present itself rather than be presented through the male gaze. The text selection therefore emphasises interiority over the physical body, accentuating memory and connection. Each chapter is organised by theme focusing on physical changes, loss and mourning, as well as birthdays and chronological definitions of ageing. It draws on important frameworks of literary age studies as well as the classical and biblical models of older age prominent in the Romantic period. The originality of this project lies in the analysis of lyric poems in relation to women writers and old age, which offers an alternative to fiction and journals that have dominated critical interest. It addresses Dorothy Wordsworth’s chapbook poems, the elegies of Anna Seward and Anna Barbauld as well as the birthday poems of Joanna Baillie and Amelia Opie. This study does not aim to provide a definition of ageing, rather present what ageing looks like to each individual writer and suggests the ways women writers challenge contemporary stereotypes of older age. It is the first study to bring together these writers in conversation on the topic of gerontology, the majority of the poems discussed have not previously been considered in relation to age studies, or in any form of comparative discourse.
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