Joanna Baillie (11 September 1762 – 23 February 1851) was a Scottish poet and dramatist, known for such works as Plays on the Passions (three volumes, 1798–1812) and Fugitive Verses<nowiki> (1840). Her work shows an interest in moral philosophy and the Gothic.</nowiki> She was critically acclaimed in her lifetime, and while living in Hampstead, associated with contemporary writers such as Anna Barbauld, Lucy Aikin, and Walter Scott. She died at the age of 88. Her mother, Dorothea Hunter (c. 1721–1806), was a sister of the Scottish physicians and anatomists William and John Hunter. Her father, Rev. James Baillie (c. 1722–1778), was a Presbyterian minister, and in his last two years Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. Her aunt, Anne Home Hunter, was a poet. The Baillies were an old Scottish family which claimed descent from the Scottish patriot, Sir William Wallace. Wallace is not known to have had any children, however.
Joanna Baillie was the youngest of three children: her twin sister died unnamed as a baby, her surviving sister was Agnes Baillie (1760–1861), who lived to be a centenarian. Their brother, Matthew, became a London physician. Joanna was no dedicated scholar. Her early passions were for the Scottish countryside. She had her own pony and her interest in stories was demonstrated by plays she created and stories she told. At home she was dealt with strictly and displays of anger or glee were discouraged. She was not taken to the theatre. The only drama she saw was a puppet show.
When she reached her seventies, Baillie experienced a year of ill health, but recovered and returned to writing and correspondence, and included Scottish folk songs in her Fugitive Verses written in her eighties (in 1840). This unusually analytical and arguably artificial approach generated much discussion and controversy, and in "a week or two Plays on the Passions was a main topic... in the best literary circles" (Carswell 273). The whole of London was excited to figure out who the author could be. Authorship was attributed to a male until someone pointed out that all of the protagonists were middle-aged women, rarely the muses of male authors (Carswell 274). Baillie finally revealed herself as the author in 1800, in the title-page of the third edition.
- 1800 De Monfort was produced at Drury Lane with John Kemble and Sarah Siddons in the leading roles. Splendidly staged, the play ran for eight nights, but was not a theatrical success. Features in the 2019 anthology Classic Plays by Women.
- 1802 The second volume of Plays on the Passions was published under Joanna Baillie's name, with a preface acknowledging the reception given to volume one: "praise mixed with a considerable portion of censure". Volume 2 consisted of The Election, a comedy on hatred, Ethwald, a tragedy in two parts on ambition, and The Second Marriage, a comedy on ambition. Baillie saw these plays, especially Ethwald, as exemplifying her best writing.
- 1804 A volume entitled Miscellaneous Plays; the tragedies Rayner and Constantine Paleologus, and a comedy, The Country Inn
- 1810 The Scottish-themed The Family Legend, produced at Edinburgh under the patronage of Sir Walter Scott, had a brief though brilliant success. It included a prologue by Scott and an epilogue by Henry Mackenzie. Its success encouraged the theatre managers to revive De Monfort, which was also well received.
- 1812 A third and final volume of Plays on the Passions consisted of two gothic tragedies, Orra and The Dream, a comedy, The Siege, and a serious musical drama, The Beacon. The tragedies and comedy represented the passion of Fear, while the musical drama represented Hope. Introducing what she called "probably the last volume of plays I shall ever publish," she explained that she intended to complete her project by writing further dramas on the passions of Remorse, Jealousy and Revenge, but did not intend to publish them, as publication had discouraged stage production.
- 1815 The Family Legend, produced at Drury Lane, London
- 1821 De Monfort [sic] was produced at Drury Lane, London, with Edmund Kean in the title role. Constantine Paleologus, though written with John Kemble and Sarah Siddons in mind, was declined by Drury Lane. It was produced at the Surrey Theatre as a melodrama, Constantine and Valeria, and in its original form at Liverpool, Dublin and Edinburgh.
- 1836 Three volumes of Miscellaneous Plays were published. They included nine new plays, and the continuation of Plays on the Passions promised earlier: a tragedy and comedy on jealousy and a tragedy on remorse. Their publication created a stir, and critics were almost all enthusiastic and welcoming. Fraser's Magazine declared, "Had we heard that a MS play of Shakespeare's, or an early, but missing, novel of Scott's, had been discovered, and was already in the press, the information could not have been more welcome" (Fraser's Magazine, p. 236).
Baillie's reputation does not rest entirely on her dramas; she also authored poems and songs admired for their beauty. Considered the best are the Lines to Agnes Baillie on her Birthday, The Kitten, To a Child and some of her adaptations of Scottish songs, such as Woo'd and Married an'a. Scattered through the dramas are some lively and beautiful songs: The Chough and The Crow in Orra, and the lover's song in The Phantom. This shyness is in keeping with her humble, contented disposition. She did not seek acclaim for her poems, but simply wrote them for enjoyment. Ironically, they have become better known than her plays.
However, in an 1804 prefatory address in Miscellaneous Plays, Baillie defended her plays as acting plays. The criticism that she had no understanding of practical stagecraft and that her plays were torpid and dull in performance rankled throughout her life, and she was always delighted to hear of a production being mounted, no matter how humble it might be. She believed that critics had unfairly labelled her work as closet drama, partly because she was a woman and partly because they had failed to read her prefaces with care. She pointed also to the conventions of the theatre in her time, when lavish spectacle on huge stages was the order of the day. Her own plays, with their attention to psychological detail, worked best, she argued, in well-lit small theatres where facial expressions could clearly be seen. She wrote, "I have wished to leave behind me in the world a few plays, some of which might have a chance of continuing to be acted even in our canvas theatres and barns." It is clear that Baillie wanted her plays to be acted, not just read.
Religious writing
Growing up as a Presbyterian minister's daughter, religion had always been important to Baillie. In 1826 she published The Martyr, a tragedy on religion, intended for reading only. In 1831 she entered into public theological debate with a pamphlet, A view of the general tenour of the New Testament regarding the nature and dignity of Jesus Christ, where she analysed the doctrines of order in the Trinity, Arianism, and Socinianism. As she mentions in the preface to The Martyr, Baillie was concerned about the "many perplexing and contradictory doctrines" that "churchmen" had added to the Bible. Believing that "no Christian — no Protestant Christian, regulates, or at least ought to regulate, his faith by any thing but what appears to him to be really taught in Scripture,” she devoted most of A view of the general tenour of the New Testament regarding the nature and dignity of Jesus Christ to presenting relevant passages in the New Testament so that those with "[g]ood intentions [and] a clear common understanding" could make their own decisions regarding the question of Christ's divinity. The Unitarian minister Thomas Sadler, who preached her funeral sermon, appreciated not only "her own free and diligent search after revealed truth" but also the way that she "respected the faithful convictions of others in proportion as she valued her own."
Philanthropy and literary advice
Financially secure herself, Joanna Baillie customarily gave half her earnings from writing to charity, and engaged in many philanthropic activities. In the early 1820s she corresponded with a Sheffield campaigner, James Montgomery, in support of his efforts on behalf of chimney sweeps. She declined to send a poem, fearing that was "just the very way to have the whole matter considered by the sober pot-boilers over the whole kingdom as a fanciful and visionary thing," whereas "a plain statement of their miserable lot in prose, accompanied with a simple, reasonable plan for sweeping chimneys without them" was far better strategically (letter, 5 Feb 1824).
Where literary matters were concerned, Joanna Baillie had a shrewd understanding of publishing as a trade. She took seriously the influence her eminence gave her, and authors down on their luck, women writers, and working-class poets like the shoemaker poet John Struthers applied to her for assistance. She wrote letters, drew on all her contacts, and used her knowledge of the literary world to advise or to further a less well-connected writer. In 1823, she edited and published by subscription a collection of poems by many leading writers of the day, in support of a widowed old school friend with a family of daughters to support.
Baillie befriended the eccentric American writer, critic and activist John Neal, after reading his article "Men and Women" in Blackwood's Magazine in October 1824. He in turn admired Baillie's poems and plays and welcomed the attention from the more established literary figure.
Wordsworth himself considered Baillie the "ideal gentlewoman", despite the fact that she was Scottish (Zell 19). Her most famous work, De Monfort, helped to inspire Lord Byron's closet drama Manford (Strand 1). Byron went on to value her advice, calling her "the only dramatist since Orwan" (Zell 19). In 1806 Baillie solidified a friendship with Scott and she and her sister would often visit Scotland (Strand 1).
Reputation and legacy
American critic and writer John Neal referred to Baillie in an 1866 Atlantic Monthly article as the "female Shakespeare of a later age".
John Stuart Mill, in his Autobiography, recalled that in childhood, Baillie's Constantine Paleologus seemed to him "one of the most glorious of human compositions" He continued to see it "one of the best dramas of the last two centuries".
Two songs from Ethwald, Hark! the cock crows and Once upon my cheek he said the roses grew, were set to music by the English composer John Wall Callcott. Beethoven also set her poem O Swiftly Glides the Bonny Boat to music in 1815.
One of her few detractors was Francis Jeffrey, who in 1803 published a long condemnatory review of the Plays on the Passions in the Edinburgh Review. He attacked the narrow theory, practice and purpose of the plays. Though he praised her "genius", Baillie marked Jeffrey down as a literary enemy and refused a personal introduction. Not until 1820 would she agreed to meet him; but they then became warm friends. James Hogg referenced their earlier clash in John Paterson's Mare, his allegorical satire on the Edinburgh publishing scene first published in the Newcastle Magazine in 1825, in which Baillie features as "a very interesting Scotch girl".
Maria Edgeworth, recording a visit in 1818, summed up her appeal for many: Both Joanna and her sister have most agreeable and new conversation, not old, trumpery literature over again and reviews, but new circumstances worth telling, apropos to every subject that is touched upon; frank observations on character, without either ill-nature or the fear of committing themselves; no blue-stocking tittle-tattle, or habits of worshipping or being worshipped.
Joanna Baillie offered a new way of looking at drama and poetry. She was revered by poets on both sides of the Atlantic; many of her contemporaries placed her above all women poets except Sappho. According to Harriet Martineau she had "enjoyed a fame almost without parallel, and... been told every day for years, through every possible channel, that she was second only to Shakespeare." Works of hers were translated into Sinhalese and German, and she was performed widely in both the United States and Britain.
Yet even when Martineau met her in the 1830s, that fame seemed to belong to a bygone era. There were no revivals of her plays in the 19th or 20th century, though her tragedies might seem suited to the intimacy of television or film. Not until the late 20th century did critics began to recognize how her intimate depictions of the human psyche had influenced Romantic literature. Scholars now recognize her importance as a stage innovator and dramatic theorist, and critics and literary historians of the Romantic period concerned with reassessing the place of women writers acknowledge her significance.
Joanna Baillie was great friends with Lady Byron. This friendship led her to be close friends and colleagues with Lord Byron as well. Lord Byron even attempted to get one of her plays to be performed at Drury Lane, sadly to no avail. Their friendship continued until a domestic division arose between Lord and Lady Byron, leaving Baillie to take the side of her friend. After this, she was more critical of Lord Byron and his work, calling his characters "untrue to nature and morally bankrupt" While they were still polite to each other as literary contemporaries, their friendship did not return.
One of those Baillie corresponded with most was Sir Walter Scott. The two wrote enough letters to each other to fill a sizeable volume. Scott appreciated and supported Baillie as a literary contemporary, but their relationship did not stop there. Their letters are full of personal details and conversations about their families. While they both respected each other's work, their friendship was deeper than just professional.
On 11 September 2018, to commemorate the 256th anniversary of her birth, Google released a Google Doodle celebrating her,