Last week, at an exhibition entitled ‘Frayed: Textiles onthe Edge’ at the Time and Tide museum, Great Yarmouth (more on that in my next
post!), I revisited a piece of textile that last year dominated my life and
thoughts for months on end! The item is Elizabeth Parker’s autobiographical
textile sampler, which was the subject of my undergraduate
dissertation at the University of Manchester. Belonging to the Victoria
and Albert Museum (whose online collection entry on it can be found here), the sampler features a 1,643
word autobiographical outpouring by a seventeen year old, working class,
nineteenth-century female, painstakingly crafted in tiny red cross stitches. Parker
narrates her childhood, abuse in the workplace, suicidal temptations and mental
struggles in a confessional and prayer-like manner. Devoid of the moral verses,
ornamental borders and decorative stitching typical of samplers from the
seventeenth century onwards, the piece stands out as highly unique and profoundly
powerful.
My degree was in English Literature, and Parker’s sampler
provided a perfect opportunity to bring my love of textile into my work. Whilst
the sampler had previously only really been written about as a textile
artefact, I saw its value as a literary text in itself that could be analysed
and written about in just the same way as one would any other novel, poem, play
or traditional autobiography, despite its unorthodox textile form. To put many
months of study into painfully generalised terms: due to gendered moral and
religious discourse concerning women’s roles, traditional autobiographical
writing and publishing was simply not an opportunity afforded many historical
females, and especially not suicidal, abused, seventeen year old maidservants.
There is a large literature of critical work relating to the importance of
reclaiming the voices of women throughout history who, due to their gender,
social and economic status, were not able to have their voices heard in
orthodox ways (if anyone wants to get in touch re: reading lists I’d be happy
to help!) For me, Parker’s sampler constituted an amazing chance to recover one
such lost voice and give it the serious literary consideration it deserves, as
well as exploring the interplay between its form and content: essentially, what
does the fact that it is a textile text mean, what effects does this have on it
as a piece of literature.
my precarious position of study! |
At the time of writing my dissertation the sampler wasn’t on
display anywhere. Instead, however, I was able to go and view it in storage at
the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Blythe House facility in Hammersmith, which
was an amazing and special experience for me in itself! Unfortunately this did
also mean that I was only able to view the sampler whilst precariously standing
at the top of a tall stepladder, as it was hung very high up! As a result, my
photos are all very close up! I’d also like to give special thanks to V&A
curator Edwina Ehrman for meeting with me that day and also taking me up to the
conservation studios, which was just fantastic.
Now, the dissertation totals 31 pages and I can’t really go
into it all without practically rewriting the whole thing on here! So just briefly… the focus of my study was at
its most broken down level, I suppose, the complex paradoxes that surrounded
every aspect of the sampler. The text begins with the words ‘As I cannot write’,
immediately conjuring up a whole load of questions given that Parker is indeed
communicating in text (and thus ‘writing’), yet this text is not orthodox
writing, but stitch. Nor is it, however, a conventional textile sampler. As my previous post on the evolution of samplers
discusses, by the 19th century textile samplers had become the
ultimate method by which traditional Victorian femininity was inculcated: not a
site for independent production of text and communication. Parker’s stitching
therefore occupies a strange and subversive space, negotiating gender norms and
traditions to perform a radical act of autobiographical communication at the
same time as it claims not to be autobiographical ‘writing’, hiding in the
safety of its textile form, and subsequent associations with feminine behaviour
in sewing.
This sense of paradox is furthered by close study of the text
itself. I discovered profound anxiety concerning silence and speech, agency and
passivity, and the problems of narrating both personal trauma and confession.
Parker is nonetheless compelled to speak out, for the sake of her wellbeing and
salvation, at the same time as she recognises this act, and even her own
thoughts, as transgressive. Connecting Parker’s act of autobiographical
stitching to both the theories of Hélène Cixous concerning the need for an
exclusively female form of writing with the body, and the ancient story of Philomela, who after being raped and
having her tongue cut out won justice by weaving a
depiction of her story, I ultimately argued that the textile form of Parker’s
writing is crucial in resolving the tensions and paradoxes discussed so far. The
act of joining together fabric and thread in every stitch offers a valuable alternate
discursive site where Parker is free to express herself, simultaneously healing
and joining her fractured mental state. The fact that the sampler is a textile text is, I found, absolutely
intrinsic to the meaning and power of Parker’s communicative act.
I find the above painfully brief and badly explained
compared to the months of research and writing that went into the original
dissertation, but I hope it is enough to spark someone’s own thoughts and interest
without being too garbled! A nice surprise was that the dissertation won the De Quincey essay prize - meaning that thankfully I can't have been the only one in UofM's English department who thought it was interesting (always a relief) - who knew being a textile nerd would come in so handy! Again, for anyone wanting reading tips on anything
from material practices and gender/feminism, female life writing and
autobiography, samplers, the role of form in literary texts, etc, just get in
touch!
I know this post is old but I’d love to read your dissertation if you are still willing to share.
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