An Apology for Sadness

Description

The house of Anne Lynch Botta (1815 – 1891) was a central meeting place for all the most famous and accomplished personalities in the worlds of literature, art and acting. Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Grace Greenwood, Fanny Kemble and Daniel Webster are just a few of the names you’d likely to have encountered on a Saturday night gathering at Mrs. Botta’s home for an evening filled with passionate and insightful conversation.

Botta herself was also a skilled writer and poet, as well as a passionate teacher who had a long and successful career. Aside from her poetry, which received outstanding praise for its spiritual value and natural, artistic approach, she also published the Handbook of Universal Literature – a book containing unique references and accounts of the many authors that Botta had come in contact with, as well as their work.

An Apology for Sadness is considered one of Anne Lynch Botta’s true poetic masterpieces. Although short, the poem features deep spiritual and emotional connotations that very few poets of her time could deliver with the clarity and empathy that Botta was capable of.

Botta’s poem portrays the shadowy side of love and desire, placing them in antithesis with spiritual peace and the balance of the speaker’s soul. In the poet’s view, love is alike a powerful disruptive force that is both divinely beautiful and deeply bitter, fraught with a magnetic drive toward possession and a strong feeling of need. This marvelous little poem will bring to life emotions that run deep in the soul of anyone who has felt the touch of love and loss in their life.

The poem was published in 1848 in Anne Lynch Botta’s poetry collection simply entitled Poems. As in the case of most of Botta’s poetry, its insightful expression, beauty and value continue to be valued by critics even to this day.
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