Mathilde Blind
| Mathilde Blind | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Mathilde Cohen 21 March 1841 Mannheim, Germany |
| Died | 26 November 1896 (aged 55) London |
| Occupation | poet |
Mathilde Blind (born Mathilde Cohen, pseudonym Claude Lake, 21 March 1841 in Mannheim, Germany – 26 November 1896 in London), was a German-born English poet. Her work was praised by Matthew Arnold and French politician and historian Louis Blanc. Her epic poem The Ascent of Man gave an account of the Darwinian theory of evolution.
Blind was born in Mannheim, Germany, the older child of a banker named Cohen and his second wife, born Friederike Ettlinger. She had a brother, Ferdinand. Cohen died in Mathilde's infancy and her mother remarried to Karl Blind, who was involved in the Baden insurrection of 1848. They fled in 1849 to London, where Mathilde took Karl's surname. There she attended the Ladies' Institute, St John's Wood, where she was a friend of future novelist Rosa Nouchette Carey.
She was greatly influenced by foreign refugees who frequented her stepfather's house, including Giuseppe Mazzini, for whom she entertained a passionate admiration and about whom she would publish reminiscences in the Fortnightly Review in 1891. At the age of 18, she travelled alone to Switzerland and maintained a fondness for the country throughout her life. Some critics believe that the trip reflected in an "especially cosmopolitan character" in her literary work. While in Switzerland she was barred as a woman from entry to lectures at Zurich University, but she spent much time in company with revolutionaries. In 1866 her brother Ferdinand failed in an attempt to assassinate Otto von Bismarck, then chancellor of the North German Confederation, and committed suicide in prison.
Her first known production was a German ode recited at Bradford for the Schiller centenary in 1859. It was followed by an English tragedy about Robespierre, which was never printed but earned praise from Louis Blanc, and by a short volume of immature poems published in 1867 under the pseudonym Claude Lake. Visits to Scotland inspired two poems of considerable compass and ambition: the narrative poem "The Prophecy of St. Oran" (published in 1881, but written some years earlier) and "The Heather on Fire" (1886), a denunciation of the Highland clearances. Both are full of impassioned eloquence and energy, and "The Prophecy" in particular has an ample share of the quality Matthew Arnold called "Celtic magic". "Tarantella", a prose romance, was published in 1885 (a 2nd edition in 1886; there was also an 1885 Boston edition), but was less attuned to the tastes of her day.
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