The Woman Who Dared

Epes Sargent’s long narrative poem appeared in Boston in 1870, when American arguments about marriage, divorce and women’s independence were at their loudest. Linda Percival grows up beside the Hudson with parents the neighbors take for husband and wife. They are not married: a court, deceived by perjured evidence, granted her father’s first wife a divorce and barred him from ever marrying again. A railroad accident kills both parents, and the law hands the family money to the daughter of that first marriage. Linda supports herself by painting, argues in company that a woman should be free to speak first about love, then does exactly that and proposes to the man she wants. Blank verse in nine parts, with songs and lyrics set into the story.