I KNOW, I KNOW , IT'S NOT FRIDAY BUT ... YOU CAN'T JUST SHUT THE DOOR IF JOHN PORTER IS OUT THERE!

At last they decided it was time to give us something to calm  our awful withdrawal symptoms down: we can see a bit of Richard Armitage in his latest role. Tanned and fit, here he is as John Porter.

 (My caps from a promo you can see HERE).

Kudos to Damian Knight for editing and posting this promo he prepared for SKY 1.

The 6 episodes of STRIKE BACK are going to be broadcast

on Sky 1 in April.

My previous post on the series

My review of Chris Ryan's novel, Strike Back

GIVEAWAY WINNER - THE INTRIGUE AT HIGHBURY

 Here I am to announce Carrie Bebris's The Intrigue at Highbury giveaway winner!

These are the names of  the readers who kindly had a look at my review of the book

 and Ms Bebris guest post and left their comments here

1. Ruth

2. Katherine
3. Lunarossa
4. Sweet Lady Jess
5. Mystica
6. Karen
7. Librarypat
8. Buddyt
9. Nancy

And here's the number random.org generator picked up

KATHERINE , YOU ARE THE WINNER!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!

WHAT I HAVE BEEN WATCHING ...

AT THE CINEMA - MINE VAGANTI by FERZAN OZPETEK

I love Ferzan Ozpetek's movies and I love his courage. Not  easy to find the courage to be honest in the showbiz. Any of his movies is an exciting (often gripping) adventure in the depths of the human soul. A difficult path, often uneven, but always honest, truthful and tending to spirituality. Love and diversity (Le Fate Ignoranti, The Ignorant Fairies 2001), passion and civil awareness (La finestra di fronte , Facing Windows, 2003),  love that thanks to charity gets to faith (Cuore sacro, 2005), love and friendship (Saturno contro,   Saturn in opposition, 2007). Ozpetek turns around his favourite theme catching different nuances and different perspectives each time. Also in the movie I saw at  the cinema at the weekend, his just released MINE VAGANTI,  there are troubled, hidden or impossible loves that destabilize the traditional balance of  a family group. The family bonds are not loosen  but freed from old habits and falsity. The new tone Ozpetek has chosen this time is the light touch of comedy: you laugh all the time but you are touched and moved to tears at the same time. You laugh at homosexuality but you deeply feel the troubled effort of the protagonists at pursuing their idendity, authenticity and  freedom.

The story. In the South of Italy, Lecce, the Cantone family is well - off and respected. Vincenzo Cantone, the father, runs a pasta factory with his elder son, Antonio (Alessandro Preziosi above on the left). The younger son , Tommaso, lives and studies in Rome (Riccardo Scamarcio above on the right). Tommaso is back home to tell his narrow-minded,  prejudiced father all the truth about himself: he is not studying Economics and Marketing but Literature at university, he doesn't want to continue the family tradition in the factory but to become a writer, he is not someone his father can like... he is a homosexual. He tells Antonio, his brother, everything first. At the family reunion around  the table that night,  Tommaso is ready to reveal everything but Antonio comes first: he doesn't like working at the factory, he wants to leave. He is not who everybody thinks he is, he is a homosexual.

Their poor father, Vincenzo,  has a stroke and is brought to hospital . So Tommaso won't have the time nor the will to speak out his own truth. Antonio is sent away from home and from the family  business . Now Tommaso must take his place and help his father.

This is just the beginning of the story which stars a brilliant cast of Italian actors among whom splendid Ilaria Occhini, the grandmother, the "mina vagante": she knows what an impossible love is. She is poetry in this movie.  Talking to Alba (Nicole Grimaudo) who is in love, unrequited, with Tommaso,  the grandmother says: "I know what an impossible love is. Impossible loves never end because they last forever". She has loved  - all her life -  her husband's brother and has lived all her life keeping her painful secret inside.

 She is the only one who knows Tommaso's and Antonio's secret, without them revealing it. She teaches to them that life isn't worth living if you try , always try, to do  what the others want you to do.

Basic philosophy for a great character.

Cast and Credits

 Official site

ON ITALIAN TV - SISSI

 As I did for S. Agostino, last week, I recorded this mini series, cut off all the ads in it, and watched it this last weekend when I found some spare time to enjoy it. It is another international ( Italian/Austrian/German) production which makes me re-evaluate our state TV, which I usually carefully avoid watching.

Young Elizabeth of Bavaria, empress of Austria, has always been better known as "Sisi". She’s probably one of the most popular and loved female figures in European history. She influenced the political scene of her time though history was made by men –and still is - by men.

This two- part TV series tells her story, not as a fairy – tale (do you remember Romy Schneider’s Sissi?) but in a more realistic way, focusing on her troubled journey from her happy free childhood to being a wife, a mother, the empress of Austria.

The romantic story of her meeting with Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and her cousin, soon turns into the dramatic account of her living at court with her mother-in-law and aunt forcing her to repress her desire for freedom and independence . Their relationship is the first cause of Sisi’s unhappiness.

She will have to fight to get things done as she wants, she will have to fight to defend their children’s freedom and to take them with her, whe will have to bear great losses ( her first daughter dies) and she will have to recover from a nervous breakdown, she will have to go through  a troubled relationship with her beloved husband in order to keep both her independence and his love. She is a very modern, rebellious, stubborn, strong, unconventional young woman and life will not be easy at court for her.

Then, the Empire her husband rules is going through a deep crisis: several territories (among which Lombardy and Veneto in Italy or Hungary) ask for their autonomy and independence. She will be asked to share Franz Joseph's destiny through tragedy.

I loved this mini-series, more than  Romy Schneider's  cult film, especially because it shows the human side of the fairy-tale, which loses its magic but acquires the taste of a dramatic but beautiful account of a life. The life of a great woman.

THE CAST : Sissi Cristiana Capotondi , Franz Joseph David Rott , Arciduchess Sofia Martina Gedeck , Count Andrassy Fritz Karl , Ludovica Licia Maglietta , Countess Esterhazy Fanny Stavjanik , Nené Christiane Filangieri , Maximilian Xaver Hutter , Max Herbert Knaup , Radetzky Friedrich von Thun , Ida Ferency Katy Saunders , Napoleon III Erwin Steinhauer , Eugenia Andrea Osvart , Charlotte of  Belgium Federica De Cola .

The official site at Rai .it 
 Elisabeth of Bavaria

MY BLOGGER BUDDIES - MS LUCY'S INTERVIEW + GIVEAWAY

Ms Lucy is one of my first and most friendly acquaintances in the blogoworld. She is of Italian origins but lives in Canada. And, surprisingly, we discovered how much we had in common reading and commenting  our blogs reciprocally. Her Enchanted by Josephine is an amazing site about historical fiction with hundreds of followers and enthusiastic readers. She also writes a blog about teaching  at  http://esl-ealandmore.blogspot.com/. She is so beautiful, I asked her if she has ever been an actress. No, never, she said. She is a super mum, instead: 5 children!

On occasion of our friendly chat, she has generously decided to give away two gently-used books by Jane Austen from her personal library :

1.  Pride and Prejudice

2. Northanger Abbey + Sanditon, The Watsons and Lady Susan

To get a chance to win the two books, read Ms Lucy's interview, comment and leave your e-mail address. The giveaway is open internationally and winner will be announced on Monday 22nd March.

1. So Lucy, welcome on Fly High! I’m so pleased you accepted my invitation. Please, tell us something about you just to have a start.

Thanks so much for having me, Maria Grazia. I love your blog and find the stuff you post is always so very interesting and well researched, and for a lover of all that is literature, it’s simply an honour for me to be a part of this! So here’s a bit about me...I was born in Montreal, Canada; raised in an Italian home. Both my parents are originally from the Veneto region of Italy (hence my passion for all that is Venetian) I studied Literature and Languages at the University level and specialized in both French and English. I also studied Human Relations (Commerce and Communications) and History. All this led me to a career in teaching and language consulting. On a more personal level, I’m happily married and the mother to five...very intense kids!

2. Five, astonishing! I can't imagine what it may be like! Two sons are already a huge load of work to me. And they are teenagers, already. Well, better not to start. Italian mothers can talk about their children for hours!

So, I remember you were one of my first supporters and you are still always so kind and appreciative of my efforts. I have to thank you for so many things! Let’s mention just two of them: you suggested me to take part in the Everything Austen Challenge last year and I won my first giveaway at your site. One of my best 2009 reads, Cleopatra’s Daughter by Michelle Moran. How did you find me and my blogs ? Can you remember?

Maria Grazia, I can’t remember exactly how we met, but I’m pretty sure it was through one of the Austen blogs. I think you commented, or, were somehow linked by another blogger. But the one thing that is certain is that I had to absolutely seek you out- and when I found your blog I was hooked immediately. I love the way you combine literature, love of reading, history and teaching all in one. Your reviews are fabulous and so in-depth. There’s tons of room for creativity and activities to help further elaborate a teaching theme. It’s wonderful!

3. Your blog, Enchanted by Josephine, is fabulous. How and when did you start blogging? What do you most appreciate of the blogoworld?

Thank you so much! I’ve basically been a reader all of my life- I actually used to write reviews for my students in order to entice them to read up on great books. One day, just like that, I decided to explore the online world to see what was out there in terms of history, literature and reviews. I was blown away with what I found. There is so much great material out there. So, I basically decided to start a blog to share my own passion for reading of history, and to share my finds. I can’t believe so much happened within one year.

4. Of course, you like reading a lot. What are your favourite authors, genres, books?

I love reading anything that has to do with history; both fiction and non-fiction. My all time favourite historical fiction author is Jean Plaidy. Although her books are classified as historical fiction, her work is incredibly accurate in terms of the history. I also love Jane Austen. Because of the quality of literature, wit and underlying wisdom between the lines, Austen is more than classic. As for a modern-day author of historical fiction, I would have to choose Sandra Gulland- her Josephine trilogy is superb. I also revel in reading real history and for that, there’s none other than historian-author, Vincent Cronin for me.

5. Apart from reading and blogging we share something else. Teaching?

Yes, we do! I specialize in teaching ESL and also train teachers in this area. Although I have moved onto doing more language consulting these days, where I create teaching manuals and language facilitation programs for companies and language institutions, I still take on a couple of classes a month. You know how it is...once a teacher, always a teacher.

6. Anything else I forgot? I mean, anything else we have in common…

Besides teaching, reading, blogging, Austen, love of the English language and literature...that’s quite a bit! I would have to add that our Italian roots are also another thing in common.

7. I’m fond of period drama and movies. What about you?

Oh, yes! That’s another one we have in common. I especially love historical movies- both at the theatre and on PBS or the History channel. I also make sure I get to watch every Austen movie. The ones that have played on television just recently, were pure delight for me.

8. Being of Italian origin, what do you think is typically Italian in you? (if you think you’ve got anything …)

For sure my love of family, the arts (in all forms), food and wine- striving for La Dolce Vita in general with a mix of being passionate to the extreme in all things I take on- I think is typically very Italian of me. Oh, and something else that you can’t see online: I talk with my hands (very practical when teaching a new language and need to be understood!) No, seriously, I’m very animated- I guess that falls into the Italian category as well  ; -)

I want to add a little anecdote if I may- without it being called stereotypical...cause this actually happened. I remember my mom always being the loudest when calling me from out to play- same was true for my aunt when calling in my cousins. Their voice carried through the streets of Montreal like sirens. Even kids 3 or 4 blocks away would know when we were being called in for lunch...so one day I said to my mom ‘people are always asking me why Italian Moms are so loud’—Her reply: ‘Maybe Italian Moms speak very loudly because their Italian children don’t listen very well!

Believe it or not, I now use the same line with my own children.

9. Which is the best thing / which, instead, the worst thing of living in Italy (for what you know or experience of it)

The best thing of living in Italy...I can only speak of my childhood summers spent in what I believe is Europe’s garden... I think Italy is the most breathtakingly beautiful country I’ve ever seen. I love the warmth of the people and the country and am always blown away by the art and the history. I particularly love the way Italians keep abreast of the times. Not only are they constantly innovating and creating, they are trend setters by nature.

10. With Antonella-lunarossa we played the game of “the one weakness”in her interview. I want to change it a bit … what do you think is your strength?

I would have to say that my greatest strength has got to be my capacity to take on various projects at a time. You can say that I work quite well under stress! This is partiularly useful when taking on new research involving reading and writing projects, course loads, mandates- But, most especially in my number one job of being a Mom.

Maria Grazia, I loved your questions...the only thing missing was the two of us sipping a delicious capuccino together.

I love cappuccino and black coffee, too. But very long coffee…this is not very Italian, I know. Hope to meet you in Italy and to have the chance to chat at a table sipping our cappuccino together, Lucy. Thank you so much for being my guest!

RA FRIDAY - A FASCINATING RASCAL

(Lee Richards in Cold Feet)

Tell me, honestly, would you resist him? Look at his gaze and smile... Could you actually deny anything to this charming rascal ? 

And what about this one?

(John Mulligan in "Drowning not waving")

I've been working hard (tough job!)  this week on imagining Richard as protean Robert  Lovelace. Mutable, versatile, untrustworthy , treacherous, vain, but handsome, fascinating, enchanting, attractive, manly, sexy… irresistible. Except your name is ...  Clarissa Harlowe! One of the  most feminist/puritan heroine in literature.  She rejected him! Anyhow, poor  creature,  it's not her fault. Sanctimonious Richardson created her like that. And her stubborness (sex phobia?) ruined the two of them: Lovelace and herself.

I’m so sure Richard will do an excellent job. He will give Lovelace new life and new charm. Are you ready to listen to BBC 4 radio drama based on Samuel Richardson's CLARISSA? Next Sunday afternoon at 3 p. m. (Greenwich time) You can listen to it online at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

I can't wait and I've been studying hard to be ready. I've taken this task on very seriously. I've read several of the  letters in the novel  (not the entire book... three books indeed!) and found my old uni notes to recall what I studied. I've read some reviews and essays. But ... the most interesting thing was watching BBC 1991 Clarissa starring Sean Bean and Saskia Wickham.

I went on substituting RA's voice to Mr Bean's  voice all the time and what an emotion ... certain scenes were even more thrilling! Do you want to try yourself? Here you are.What if Richard played this passionate scene?

Phew! Such a tragic story! Sentimental and even melodramatic in Richardson’s epistolary novel. Better conveyed, with less redundancy, in the TV adaptation.

Such a perfect puritan heroine  meets an unscrupolous  libertine on her path. She sees him as the only means to escape from a her family’s prison , from the disgusting Mr Solmes, the man her family has  chosen as her husband. But, then Lovelace becomes her new gaoler. He wants her at any cost, he tricks and deceives her. What a pity! Maybe she could have loved him if only he didn’t betray her, stirred by his flesh, his uncontrollable desire to possess that “angel”.

Impossible not to take a liking to Lovelace and reproach him at the same time. It's impossible to like Clarissa  much:  too perfect, too naive, too good. But one must sympathize with her in her misfortune. She is generous and disinterested and she wilfully renounces her grandfather’s inheritance in favour of her father and brother. She’s always been obedient and dutiful but there is one thing she can never renounce: her independence. Never.

Lovelace and Clarissa are tragic lovers, as tragic as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to me. Watching or reading their story you are there wishing... "if only"... all the time.

And now ... guess who?

Do you recognize her? A clue? She is Hannah Howe, Clarissa's best friend in the novel.

Yeah! Hermione Norris, Ros Myers in Spooks. Much better now than in 1991, isn't she?

Eagerly waiting for Richard's Lovelace!

Meanwhile ... incredibly ...other news! Lots of news!

Richard's must sleep very little, amazing man!

1. A new voiceover for a documentary about posh schools

"Too poor for Posh School"? on Channel 4 March 11th

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m598b6zbiyQ

2. A new Georgette Heyer's audiobook read by Richard

THE CONVENIENT MARRIAGE

will be released on August 2nd

3. Filming Spooks 9 (first photos on set)

HERE

4. No Charlie for Richard. Who has lost more? Mike Ogden, of course!

I'm disappointed, though. Do you remember my enthusiasm?

Richard Armitage in Italy

Many thanks to Annette for keeping us all so well updated thanks to her hard work at www.richardarmitageonline.com

and to the ladies at C19 who are incredibly active!
Last, but indeed first and not at all least, to my fairy Merryweather for her support and proactive help!

AVAILABLE SOURCES

CLARISSA ON LINE
Why Lovelace must die
I shall enter her heart

THROWBACK THURSDAY - THE BELL JAR by SYLVIA PLATH

This is an event hosted by Jenny at TakeMeAway . It is a weekly corner to write about good reads from the past. Those books we so much loved and we don't want to forget. This week one of my favourite poets' only novel, Sylvia Plath's THE BELL JAR.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
(-from ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’ by Sylvia Plath, 1954)

It was 2003. I had several reasons for reading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

One, I had developed a big interest for stories about depression, being insane, fragility. After watching the movie from Susan Kaysen’s Girl Interrupted and after reading Paolo Coelho’s Veronika Decides To Die , I wanted to to try The Bell Jar.

Two, I was curious to read Sylvia Plath’s only novel. I was very fond of her as a poet and wondered how her works would be like when she could more freely use letters and words into a big story.

Third and last, The Bell Jar has been constantly compared to JD Salinger’s Catcher and the Rye which is a book I do love. As a fanatic of Holden Caufield, I have developed this sudden urge to read Bell Jar and see if Esther Greenwood could be his female counterpart.

The story of Bell Jar is a first person account of Esther Greenwood. Sylvia Plath herself, her story at 19. Esther, like Sylvia, is a girl who has almost everything she could ask for. She’s an individual with a mind that is above average , extremely sensitive, intellingent and talented . With all of that provided for her, Esther is also struggling with the perennial problems of morality, behavior and identity crisis. The stress and the pressure of being an achiever burns her mind out ; the tension of sexual relations and the double standards on women’s virginity , the ups and downs of family relationships increase her sense of derangement.

Esther compares her life to that of an existence in a bell jar, where the air is stiff, heavy and unchanging. She feels as if she is watching her own life and everything that happened to her from within the jar.

Perhaps the best thing about the book is the fact that the life of Esther is synonymous with what the author, Sylvia Plath, had experienced. Like Esther, Plath had gone through a struggling ordeal in finding the real meaning of life and its hidden uncertainties and her eventual fall into the pit of madness.

The book has some similarities with JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye: both Esther and Holden are troubled young souls searching for the true meaning of life and their existence. Both escapes the reality they can’t accept. Both are considered crazy because of their atypicality and fragility.

“For the first time in my life, sitting there in the sound-proof heart of the UN building between Constantin who could play tennis as well as simultaneously interpret and the Russian girl who knew so many idioms I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it.

The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. felt like a racehorse in a world without race-tracks...” (ch. 7)

Other posts about Sylvia Plath on Fly High

Life was too small to contain her

I didn't know how to start this letter and now I don't know how to end it

GIVEAWAY WINNER + NEW GIVEAWAY!!!

Last week I posted both on Fly High and on My Jane Austen Book Club about Carrie Bebris's latest MR & MRS DARCY MISTERY, THE INTRIGUE AT HIGHBURY based on Jane Austen's Emma. 

1. Read Carrie Bebris's guest post

2. Read my review of The Intrigue at Highbury

Commenters on both blogs could win the latest Italian translation of  Bebris's Mysteries

L'ENIGMA DI MANSFIELD PARK offered by TEA Libri (Bebris's Italian publisher)

These are the Italian readers I entered for the giveaway

ON FLY HIGH

1. Karen

2. lunarossa

ON MY JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

3. Alesya

4. lunarossa

5. Ms Lucy

AND THE WINNER IS ....

LUNAROSSA

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Now, for all my readers a new giveaway thanks to Carrie Bebris and her American publisher, Tor Books.

You can win a copy of her brand new

THE INTRIGUE AT HIGHBURY!!!

Read Carrie's guestpost and/or  my review on My JA Book Club, come back here

1. Tell why you would like to read The Intrigue at Highbury, what aspect or character intrigues you

2. Add your e-mail address

... and good luck!

Winner will be announced next week on Wednesday 17th March

18th and 19th Century Women Writers Challenge - Charlotte Turner Smith and her Elegiac Sonnets

Many of us have heard or studied great Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge or know about early romantic poets as William Blake, Thomas Gray and William Cowper. But very few have read or studied the numerous Romantic women writers and poets we have in English literature. So I thought I could dedicate my first post in the 18th and 19th Women Writers Challenge - hosted at Becky's Book Reviews -  to one of them, one of the most representative.

Charlotte Turner Smith ( 1749 – 1806) was a successful writer : she published ten novels, three books of poetry, four children's books, and other assorted works, over the course of her career. She always saw herself as a poet first and foremost .

Smith's poetry and prose was praised by contemporaries such as Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge as well as novelist Walter Scott. Largely forgotten by the middle of the nineteenth century, her works have now been republished and she is recognized as an important Romantic writer.

But more than by her works, I have always been attracted by her unfortunate hard working life which inspired her novels and poetry.

Charlotte was born into a wealthy family and received a typical education for a woman during the late eighteenth century. However, her father's reckless spending forced her to marry early. In a marriage that she later described as prostitution, she was given by her father to the violent and profligate Benjamin Smith. Their marriage was deeply unhappy, although they had twelve children together. Charlotte joined Benjamin in debtor's prison, where she wrote her first book of poetry, Elegiac Sonnets. Its success allowed her to help pay for Benjamin's release. Benjamin's father tried to leave money to Charlotte and her children upon his death, but legal technicalities prevented her from ever acquiring it.

Charlotte Smith eventually left Benjamin and began writing to support their children. Smith's struggle to provide for her children and her frustrated attempts to gain legal protection as a woman provided themes for her poetry and novels; she included portraits of herself and her family in her novels as well as details about her life in her prefaces.

Among her novels, Emmeline, The Orphan of the Castle (1788) and Celestina (1791)

For this challenge I read , little by little, and from time to time, many of her ELEGIAC SONNETS ( on line HERE).

Smith wrote in response to a public that could pay: she urgently needed revenues from her subscriptions, which opens a difficult ground for considering the relations between form and public expectation. Important also in this regard is Smith's decision to write poetry at all, when clearly the real money to be made was in prose fiction. She did eventually make her mark as a prolific novelist, but she defined herself primarily in terms of the dignity afforded the lyricist. In insisting upon her status as lyric poet, she asserts her membership in a cultural elite, one to which she would claim rightful inclusion in spite of her financial dependencies. She defiantly locates herself within the very public that knows what is worth paying for.

Smith appropriates the form that during  the  Renaissance, was linked to a particular kind of "mythologizing the woman", one that absolutely cancels her physicality. Great sonneteers had depicted idealized unreacheable beautiful women whose chastity and spirituality were basic features of their personality.

Now in her Elegiac Sonnets- written while she was in a debtors ' prison with her husband - Charlotte, a woman trying to make her way in a largely inhospitable world, tormented by the dross of domestic despair and financial crisis, laments emphatically real losses through the same 14-line-layout  that conventionally had been used to suspend the concrete actuality of the feminine in favour of mythic presence. This is Smith’s absolute novelty in her revival of the sonnet.
Romantic poetry is pervaded by a deep sense of loss and mourning that renders much of it elegiac in tone, reflecting as it does a sense of the world in which it was written as alienated, broken and torn. The affective individual, newly shaped by contemporary debates on sensibility and feeling, was expected to respond compassionately, if dejectedly, to the ruination engendered by Britain’s war with France, the failed revolution, rural poverty and an enclosed and ravaged natural landscape. The elegiac mode thus offered Romantic poets a form in which to address the perceived devastation of society through subjective explorations of grief, death, bereavement and consolation. The latter is what is difficult to find in Smith's poetry. Her sonnets are defined elegiac but the melancholic tone of loss and sorrow are not followed by the conventional consolation which is , instead , typical of elegy. Here is an example of this attitude.

SONNET XL. FROM THE SAME.
FAR on the sands, the low retiring tide,
In distant murmurs hardly seems to flow,
And o'er the world of waters, blue and wide,
The sighing summer wind, forgets to blow.
As sinks the day-star in the rosy West,
The silent wave, with rich reflection glows:
Alas! can tranquil nature give me rest,
Or scenes of beauty, soothe me to repose?
Can the soft lustre of the sleeping main,
Yon radiant heaven, or all creation's charms,
"Erase the written troubles of the brain,"
Which Memory tortures, and which guilt alarms?
Or bid a bosom transient quiet prove,
That bleeds with vain remorse, and unextinguish'd love!

Here’s a sample of how her sonnets are strictly linked to her condition of woman totally deprived of rights and freedom. She,  thus,  defies the male canon:

To Dependence

Dependence! heavy, heavy are they chains,
And happier they who from the dangerous sea

Or the dark mine, procure with ceaseless pains

An hard-eard'd pittance--than who trust to thee!
More blest the hind, who from his bed of flock
Starts--when the birds of morn their summons give
And waken'd by the lark--"the sheperd's clock."
Lives but to labour--labouring but to live.
More noble than the sycophant, whose art
Must heap with taudry flowers thy hated shrine;
I envy not the meed thou canst impart
To crown his service--While, tho' Pride combine
With Fraud to crush me--my unfetter'd heart
Still to the Mountain Nymph may offer mine.

William Wordsworth wrote: “ A lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered”

William Cowper, instead, a close friend of hers, witnessed her exhausting hard work to financially support her family: “Chain’d to her desk like a slave to his oar, with no other means of subsistencefor herself and her numerous children, with her broken constitution, unequal to sever labour enjoined by her necessity, she is indeed to be pitied (…) she will and ust ‘ere long die a martyr to her exigencies”

She couldn't recognize, in her condition of mother-martyr, the consolatory power of Art.

Slow in the Wintry Morn, the struggling light
Throws a faint gleam upon the troubled waves;
Their foaming tops, as they approach the shore
And the broad surf that never ceasing breaks
On the innumerous pebbles, catch the beams
Of the pale Sun, that with reluctance gives
To this cold northern Isle, its shorten'd day.
Alas! how few the morning wakes to joy!
How many murmur at oblivious night
For leaving them so soon; for bearing thus
Their fancied bliss (the only bliss they taste!),
On her black wings away!—
(from THE EMIGRANTS Book I lines 1-12)

In these lines,  she identifies herself with the exile from France, those tormented people escaping from a country at war. She, a woman at war against an entire society and their injust laws, conventions and istitutions which had made  her  sublime and solitary like a byronic hero. A real forerunner of the romantic mood, she conveys the same desperate restllessness we will recognize Byron's reckless atypical figures, his outcast and rebels .