Similiarities, Differences, and Judgements

Interview

1. Where are you from and what is your family like?

            I was born in Glasgow, Scotland but I grew up in England until I moved to New York between 1757 and 1768. When I was fourteen, I returned to Glasgow where I met and married my husband, Reverend James Grant, who was the minister of Laggan in Inverness-shire. I had twelve children, eight of whom were alive when my husband perished in 1801. Deep in debt and without a job, I turned to writing to pay the bills and deal with my grief. I had friends of status who had 3000 people subscribe to my first volume of verse.

            My life continued to grow more grim as I continued to age. In 1820, I fell and became diabled. It took my friend Walter Scott five years to obtain a small pension for me. There were successive deaths of all my children except my dead son, John-Peter Grant who in 1844 published my autobiography and letters.

2. What events in your early life got you interested in the arts?

            During my time in New York, I read a good deal. My friend/mentor, Catalina Schuyler introduced me to such writers as Shakespeare, Pope, Addison, and other writers. I had no real accomplishments in my life but I loved the natural world and I had experienced much of it.

            The real thing that got me writing though was the death of my husband. I had always had a knack for writing, but with no other way to support my children, writing became my main source of income. Writing was also the way I let out my grief as I lost my husband and almost all of my children.

3. What role did mentors play in helping you develop the interests and talents you have as an artist?

            My mentor, Catalina Schuyler, very much helped develop my interests and talents as an artist. Catalina introduced me to such writers as Shakespeare, Pope, Addison, as well as other writers. Catalina was a friend to me as well. She inspired me to read which is one of the most important things a writer can do besides experience which I had plenty of.

4. What was the world of art like in your particular art field when you entered it?

            There were not many women who were writers during the enlightenment era. Two other women writers were popular during the enlightenment era, Elizabeth Hamilton and Christian Isobel Johnstone. Our writing very much influenced the world and women. Most people were exploring the ideas or reason and science in their writing.

            The enlightenment era was known as “The Age of Reason” but it was also a great time for many people to create. My poetry, letters, and essays were about the Highlands and all of my personal experiences.

5. How did the major cultural, economic, and political situations impact your work?

            I wrote an entire book on my time in the United States before the revolution, it was Memoirs of an American Lady. I often described the disappearance of a sizable portion of the Highland population. I feared and desired assimilation for these people. I often talked of Scottish history, such as the adventures of Bonnie Prince Charles.

            I was politically conservative, as in I was for the church and the monarchy and not for the principles of the French revolution, and I often wrote of this. I started a small school in Edinburgh and would entertain Scottish writers of persuasion in my home.

6.  What were your major accomplishments and methods you used in your art?

            The methods I used in my art were writing from what I knew. I re-wrote Gaelic songs. I told of Scottish history. I wrote of the Highlands. I wrote of my memories, my experiences, my life.

            My major accomplishments were definitely all of my published works:

Poems on various subjects. 1803.
Letters from the mountains. 3 vols, 1807.
The Highlanders and other poems. 1808, 1810, 1813.
Memoirs of an American lady [Catalina Schuyler]; with sketches of manners and scenery in America. 2 vols, 1808.
Essays on the superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland. 2 vols, 1811.
Eighteen-hundred and thirteen: a poem in two parts. 1814.
Popular models and impressive warnings for the sons and daughters of industry. 2 vols, 1815.
Blue bell of Scotland. 1835?
The touchstone: or the claims and privileges of true religion briefly considered. 1842.
Memoir and correspondence of Mrs. Grant, ed. J. P. Grant. 3 vols, 1844.
Letters concerning Highland affairs in the 18th century. 1896.

7. What were the key opportunities that led to turning points in your life and art?

            There were many key opputunities that led to turning points in my life and art. Traveling as a child gave me much landscape and memories in which to write from. My influential friends who helped me get my books published and read provided me with the opurtunity to become known. Catalina Schuyler showed me the best writers and I began to learn from them.

            Another great opportunity was starting my smalls school and entertaining many Scottish writers of political persuasion. This helped me to form my own beliefs as I saw how much I disagreed with their beliefs.

8. What hardships or roadblocks did you have to overcome in order to be an artist?

            There were many hardships in my life. My husband died and left me in debt and with eight children to care for. I lived longer than all of my children but one. I had to work hard to keep friends of status who would promote my works and help me publish. I had to care for my children and find time to write.

            I became disabled in my later years and I had no one to care for me. It took five years for my friend Walter Scott to get me a small pension which would be the only steady income I would receive.

9.  Who are people that admire you both in the arts and beyond why do they inspire you?

            My husband, Reverend James Grant, very much inspired me. His death, as well as the death of all of my children, scarred me in ways that never truly healed. Life without them was hard. The pain that their deaths left behind inspired me to write to pay the bills, to write to end the grief.

            Walter Scott inspired me because he was there for me as I started my school. Walter helped me receive me pensions and he spoke very highly of me. He wrote of me and said, Walter Scott wrote of her: “Her literary works although composed amidst misfortune and privation, are written at once with simplicity and force, and uniformly bear the stamp of a virtuous and courageous mind.”

10. What personal stories (anecdotes) best illustrate how you became successful in the arts?

            I was successful in the arts because I had had experience. I had the experience of my heart breaking over and over again as my husband and children died. I also had the experience of travel. I lived all over Scotland, New England, and New York.

            I was also successful because of the help of my friends. My friends used their status to help me not only get my books published, but to also have my books read.


Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.

Artifact#10

"John Constable, Vale of Dedham, Scotland." (Moody)

This is another painting of my home Scotland, done by a man from Scotland.

Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.

Artifact#9

“Edinburgh, early 19th century, an engraving by William Miller after Turner.” (Moody)
This is the place where I would later be buried as I died from the flu in 1838.

Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.

Artifact#8

“J.M.W. Turner, Ben Arthur, Scotland, an appropriate image.” (Moody)

This is a beautiful painting of what I remember Scotland and the Highlands looking like.

Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.

Artifact#7

“The way was long, the wind was cold,

The Minstrel was infirm and old;

His wither'd cheek, and tresses gray,

Seem'd to have known a better day;

The harp, his sole remaining joy,

Was carried by an orphan boy.

The last of all the Bards was he,

Who sung of Border chivalry;

For, welladay! their date was fled,

His tuneful brethren all were dead;

And he, neglected and oppress'd,

Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.

No more on prancing palfrey borne,

He caroll'd, light as lark at morn;

No longer courted and caress'd,

High placed in hall, a welcome guest,

He pour'd, to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone;

A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had call'd hs harmless art a crime.

A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,

He begg'd his bread from door to door.

And timed, to please a peasant's ear,

The harp, a king had loved to hear.

He pass'd where Newark's stately tower

Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:

The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye--

No humbler resting-place was nigh,

With hesitating step at last,

The embattled portal arch he ass'd,

Whose ponderous grate and massy bar

Had oft roll'd back the tide of war,

But never closed the iron door

Against the desolate and poor.

The Duchess marked his weary pace,

His timid mien, and reverend face,

And bade her page the menials tell,

That they should tend the old man well:

For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;

In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,

Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,

And the old man was gratified,

Began to rise his minstrel pride:

And he began to talk anon,

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,

And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!

A braver ne'er to battle rode;

And how full many a tale he knew,

Of the old warriors of Buccleuch:

And, would the noble Duchess deign

To listen to an old man's strain,

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,

He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,

That, if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtain'd;

The Aged Minstrel audience gain'd.

But, when he reach'd the room of state,

Where she, with all her ladies, sate,

Perchance he wished his boon denied:

For, when to tune his harp he tried,

His trembling hand had lost the ease,

Which marks security to please;

And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,

Came wildering o'er his aged brain--

He tried to tune his harp in vain!

The pitying Duchess praised its chime,

And gave him heart, and gave him time,

Till every string's according glee

Was blended into harmony.         

And then, he said, he would full fain

He could recall an ancient strain,

He never thought to sing again.

It was not framed for village churls,

But for high dames and mighty carls;

He had play'd it to King Charles the Good,

When he kept court in Holyrood,

And much he wish'd yet fear'd to try

The long-forgotten melody.

Amid the strings his fingers stray'd,

And an uncertain warbling made,

And oft he shook his hoary head.

But when he caught the measure wild,

The old man raised his face, and smiled;

And lighten'd up his faded eye,

With all a poet's ecstasy!

In varying cadence, soft or strong,

He swept the sounding chords along:

The present scene, the future lot,

His toils, his wants, were all forgot:

Cold diffidence, and age's frost,

In the full tide of song were lost;

Each blank in faithless memory void,

The poet's glowing thought supplied;

And while his harp responsive rung,

'Twas thus the Latest Minstrel sung.”

This is the introduction of a poem by Walter Scott that I rather favored because it tied along with my politically conservative beliefs. I was for the monarchy and the church, not for the French revolution.

Scott, Walter. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row, and A. Constable and Co., , 1805. Web. <http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/minstrel.html>.

Artifact#6

This is the cover of my novel Letters From The Mountains, Correspondence of A Lady.

Moody, Ellen. "Foremother Poet: Anne Grant (nee Macivar) (1755-1853)." Ellen and Jim Have a Blog, Two. N.p., 02 04 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/foremother-poet-anne-grant-nee-macivar-1755-1853/>.