The Wandering Jew in the Drawing Room: Harriett Abrams’s Gothic Songbook of 1803

Abstract

The limited scholarship on the English composer and singer Harriett Abrams (ca. 1758–1821) suggests that any connection she had with Judaism faded into obscurity as she assimilated into polite English society, especially following her conversion to Christianity in 1791. Yet a close reading of her Songs of 1803, the poetry of which explores the forgotten, neglected, and unfortunate outsiders of society, suggests otherwise. This essay suggests that Abrams’s Songs cultivated a musical poetics of the Gothic that implicitly evoked the figure of the Wandering Jew, an ethnically marked figure who figured prominently in much British Gothic literature. Abrams’s Songs invite a metaphorical reading through the lens of the Wandering Jew. Rather than merely asking amateur women musicians to sympathize with and exercise charity towards society’s most unfortunate souls, Abrams’s Songs force amateur musicians to confront and grapple with the ambivalent, outsider experiences of the Jews.