Elizabeth Sican was an Irish literary critic. She was part of Jonathan Swift's "triumfeminate," along with Mary Barber and Constantia Grierson.
Elizabeth Sican | |
|---|---|
| Pen name | Psyche |
| Occupation | literary critic |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Spouse | John Sican |
| Relatives | John Sican (son) |
 Literature portal | |
Life
editMost of what is known about Sican comes via her connection to Swift. She was "a prosperous grocer's wife from Essex St."[1] Sican was her married name, and she had at least one child, named John after his father, who was in turn a sometime author. In a letter to Alexander Pope in 1729, Swift describes her as "the wife of a Surly rich husband who checks her [poetic] vein."[2][3]
Swift's circles
edit
Swift was part of the Scriblerus Club, a famous literary circle in London along with other celebrated writers, notably Pope, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Henry St. John and Thomas Parnell. But he also became part of a smaller circle in Dublin, composed of local literary women. Mary Barber, Constantia Grierson, Laetitia Pilkington and Elizabeth Sican were all members, and this group of "self-made women"[4] was well-established before Swift met the Barbers in 1728.[5] Of Sican, he wrote to Pope: "She has a very good tast of Poetry, hath read much, and as I hear hath writ one or two things with applause, which I never saw, except about six lines she sent me unknown, with a piece of Sturgeon, some Years ago on my birth day."[3] In another letter in 1735, again to Pope, Swift writes that Sican "hath more sense, wit & Knowledge than the whole sex here could make up among them."[6]
Swift wrote "On Psyche" about her:
AT two afternoon for our Psyche inquire,
Her teakettle's on, and her smock at the fire:
So loitering, so active; so busy, so idle;
Which has she most need of, a spur or a bridle?
Thus a greyhound outruns the whole pack in a race,
Yet would rather be hang'd than he'd leave a warm place.
She gives you such plenty, it puts you in pain;
But ever with prudence takes care of the main.
To please you, she knows how to choose a nice bit;
For her taste is almost as refin'd as her wit.
To oblige a good friend, she will trace every market,
It would do your heart good, to see how she will cark it.
Yet beware of her arts; for, it plainly appears,
She saves half her victuals, by feeding your ears.[7]
Sican's response, if it was recorded, has not survived. None of her writings are extant.
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ Swift to Pope, cit. Pilkington p. 403.
- ^ cit. Barry, 2019.
- ^ a b Correspondence, Feb. 6, 1729, Vol. 3, p. 369.
- ^ Doody, p. 77.
- ^ Backscheider, p. 38.
- ^ Correspondence, May 12, 1735, Vol. 4, p. 104.
- ^ Swift, Jonathan. "On Psyche." The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8: Poems, Polite Conversation. Edited by Thomas Sheridan, et al. London, c. 1733, rpt. 1808, p. 204
References
edit- Backscheider, Paula. "Inverting the Image of Swift's 'Triumfeminate'." Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies Vol. 4, No. 1, Women Writers of the Eighteenth Century (Spring/Summer 2004), pp. 37-71. JSTOR. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/27793777>
- Barry, C. M. "Mary Delany, the Triumfeminate and other Dublin Women: Swift’s 'Female Senate'." Irish Philosophy. April 7, 2019. Accessed 9 September 2022.
- Budd, Adam. "'Merit in distress': The Troubled Success of Mary Barber," The Review of English Studies 53.210 (2002):204-227.
- Coleborne, Bryan. “Barber, Mary (c.1685–1755).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 1 Apr. 2007.
- Doody, Margaret Anne. "Swift Among the Women." The Yearbook of English Studies 18 (1998): 68—92.
- Pilkington, Laetitia. Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. (Etext, Internet Archive).
- Swift, Jonathan. The correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Vol III. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963. (Etext, Internet Archive)
- Swift, Jonathan. The correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Vol IV. New York: P. Lang, 1999. (Etext, Internet Archive)