Charlotte Mew and the Unspeakable Sites of Trans Embodiment

This chapter argues that Mew’s work voices a range of trans subjectivities. Focussing on her 1913 poem 'The Changeling' and her 1904 essay 'The Poems of Emily Brontë', the chapter uncovers a tumult of nonhuman embodiments and affinities, from body transformations at the hands of fairies to magical transitioning in the natural world. In doing so, the chapter argues that Mew's work celebrates a transgothic and transecological imaginary, comparing Mew's work with contemporary writing on trans childhood by the author and activist Edith Ellis (née Lees), and finally situating Mew's treatment of Emily Brontë within Edwardian explorations of the gender of genius.