Blind, Mathilde

(1841-1896)

   Born Cohen, the daughter of a German Jewish banker, she adopted the name Blind when her mother married Karl Blind. Because of his involvement in the Baden insurrection (1848-49), the family was expelled and took refuge in London, where Mathilde was educated. Her cosmopolitan work was influenced by her independent character; she traveled in Switzerland by herself at the age of eighteen and had a continuing association with European countries. She also wrote under the pseudonym "Claude Lake." Visits to Scotland inspired her with two remarkable poems: "The Prophecy of St. Oran" (1881) and "The Heather on Fire" (1886)- a denun38 ciation of the Highland Clearances. Her most ambitious work, The Ascent of Man (1888), was based on Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). Some of her publications: Ode to Schiller, 1859 (which was recited at Bradford on occasion of the dramatist's centenary). Dramas in Miniature, 1891. Songs and Sonnets, 1893. Birds of Passage: Songs of the Orient and Occident, 1895. Some of her other poems: "Love in Exile," "Anne Hathaway's Cottage," "AppleGathering," "The Robin Redbreast," "A Highland Village," "Manchester by Night," "The MusicLesson," "A Winter Landscape."

   Sources: A Treasury of Jewish Poetry. Nathan Ausubel, and Maryann Ausubel, ed. Crown, 1957. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Iona: A History of the Island. M. McNeil. Blackie and Son Ltd., 1920. Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com). Sonnets Central (www.sonnets.org/blind.htm). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Literary Encyclopedia (www.LitEncyc.com). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.