Fiction Adaption (History on Charlotte Mews 1)

   I have looked at the history of the author of 'The Cenotaph', Charlotte Mews, previously but I felt that I had to write down some main points about her that relate to the poem. I have decided to do this because a lot of information about her life relates to the poem quite a lot.
   Mews grew up in Victorian London with her mother, father and siblings. When she was in her late twenties, her father, an architect who designed Hampstead town hall, passed away leaving her family without much income left to help the family live well. The majority of her brothers and sisters either died or had mental illnesses that had them omitted to mental institutions. At the end of her life Charlotte suffered from a deep depression caused by the death of one of her sisters by cancer, this later led to her death when she killed herself by drinking Lycol. It is clear that she had many troubles in her life which was very upsetting to read, but it is clear a lot of what happened in her life influenced her work. The fact her poem is mainly based on a cenotaph is tied in to how her father was an architect, which would be understandably be an influence as architecture would possibly remind her of her father. She describes the cenotaph as a grand monument with a sense of pride about it, which also changes the mood of the poem from sadness and loss to a 'rising from the ashes' feeling. Which could be related to the emotions she felt when reminicing about her memories about her father.