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THE TRAGIC MULATTA PLAYS THE TRAGIC MUSE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

Kimberly Snyder Manganelli
Kimberly Snyder Manganelli*
Affiliation:
Clemson University
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Extract

Marie Lavington, the runaway octoroon slave in Charles Kingsley's little-read novel Two Years Ago (1857), makes this declaration of independence in a letter to Tom Thurnall, the novel's hero. Though Tom helped her escape to a Canadian Quaker community, Marie has tired of the “staid and sober” (122; vol. 1, ch. 5) lifestyle of a Quakeress. She reenters the public marketplace by refashioning herself into the Italian diva, La Cordifiamma. Marie's ascent to the stage as La Cordifiamma marks the construction of a new female body in the mid-nineteenth century: the Tragic Mulatta who becomes a Tragic Muse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , September 2009 , pp. 501 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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