SOURCE: Lee, Debbie. “The Wild Wreath: Cultivating a Poetic Circle For Mary Robinson.” Studies in Literary Imagination 30, no. 1 (spring 1997): 23-34.

In the following essay, Lee considers the collection of verses by notable Romantic poets, The Wild Wreath, edited by Maria Elizabeth Robinson, for the significance of Mary Robinson's posthumous contributions, which dominate the volume and represent Robinson's daughter's attempt to ensure her mother's place in the Romantic canon.

At the center of Mary Robinson's poem “The Foster-Child” is an abandoned boy who spends his time “on the mossy bank, alone,” “weaving a poison'd wreath” and “chaunt[ing] a strain of woe.” The foster-boy lives life on the edge, like many of Robinson's poetic characters: a maid trapped in a black tower, a gambler with a ruined life, a suicidal Negro girl, an outcast lascar.¹ But the foster-child is not just a social outcast: since he spends most of...