Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry: Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre PDF
Preview Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry: Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre
Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry This page intentionally left blank Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre Paula R. Backscheider The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore ∫ 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2005 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Johns Hopkins Paperback edition, 2008 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition of this book as follows: Backscheider, Paula R. Eighteenth-century women poets and their poetry : inventing agency, inventing genre / Paula R. Backscheider. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8018-8169-2 (alk. paper) 1. English poetry—18th century—History and criticism. 2. Women and literature—Great Britain—History—19th century. 3. English poetry—Women authors—History and criticism. 4. Authorship—Sex differences—History—18th century. 5. Invention (Rhetoric)— History—18th century. 6. Literary form—History—18th century. I. Title. PR555.W6B33 2005 821%.5099287—dc22 2004027038 isbn 13: 978-0-8018-8746-8 isbn 10: 0-8018-8746-1 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. To my daughter, Andrea, and my women friends and colleagues who wouldn’t let me walk away from this book This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Plan of the Book xiii Approaching the Poetry xix The Chapters xxii 1 Introduction 1 Changing Contexts 2 Systems, Gender, and Persistent Issues 14 Agency and the ‘‘Marked Marker’’ 22 2 Anne Finch and What Women Wrote 28 The Social and the Formal 29 Anne Finch and Popular Poetry 39 Poetry on Poetry 58 The Spleen as Legacy 72 3 Women and Poetry in the Public Eye 80 Poetry as News and Critique 84 The Woman Question 99 Elizabeth Singer Rowe 113 4 Hymns, Narratives, and Innovations in Religious Poetry 123 The Voice of Paraphrase 126 The Hymn as Personal Lyric 137 Religious Poetry as Subversive Narrative 152 Devout Soliloquies 168 viii Contents 5 Friendship Poems 175 The Legacy of Katherine Philips 177 Encouragement and the Counteruniverse 193 Jane Brereton 217 Adaptation and Ideology 223 6 Retirement Poetry 233 Beyond Convention 234 Memory, Time, and Elizabeth Carter 241 Reflection and Difference 257 7 The Elegy 268 What Did Women Write? 271 Representative Composers: Darwall and Seward 286 The Elegy and Same-Sex Desire 296 Entertainment and Forgetting 312 8 The Sonnet, Charlotte Smith, and What Women Wrote 316 The Sonnet and the Political 317 Sonnet Sequences 325 Women Poets and the Spread of the Sonnet 338 The Emigrants, Conversations, and Beachy Head 351 Smith as Transitional Poet 366 9 Conclusion 376 Biographies of the Poets 403 Notes 413 Bibliography 467 Index 499 Acknowledgments How long this book has taken to research and write can be measured in the wonderful student assistants who have worked on it with me. Kim Snyder was the first, and she left a legacy of research notebooks and finding aids that never failed us. Melissa Roth became an expert on several poets, and her insights and lively advocacy for them improved the book. Jessica Smith Ellis, Jessie Jordan, Eliz- abeth Cater Childs, and Lynn Moody did super sleuthing. Heather Hicks and Sara Brown shared the drudgery for submission with the endless polishing of notes and bibliography, and Heather and Lacey Williams cheerfully survived all the way through page proofs. Day by day, these women were the smooth wheels that kept the work going, and they added humor and new learning experiences. I am especially grateful to Martine Watson Brownley, Penny Ingram, and Devoney Looser, who read portions of the book and made many helpful sugges- tions. Tina even offered riverboat and late-night consultations. When my com- mitment to the book’s largest purposes wavered, they, together with Hilary Wyss, Alicia Carroll, Joy Leighton, and members of my former NEH seminars, espe- cially Anna Battigelli, Catherine Ingrassia, Kathryn King, and Paula McDowell, encouraged me to continue. Stuart Curran allowed me to use his copy of Char- lotte Smith’s Conversations for an extended time, Miller Solomon shared his en- tire Robert Dodsley collection, and Dave Haney, Tim Dykstal, and Jim Ham- mersmith were patient, on-site reference sources. Nancy Noe truly made the Auburn University library work for me; perhaps no library in the world would have completely supported this project, and Nancy worked tirelessly and imag- inatively to give me access to whatever eighteenth- and twenty-first-century items I needed. Susan Gubar by a chance remark she has probably forgotten played an important part in my decision to write this book: she reminded me how often in my career I have reconsidered and tested paradigms and how much pleasure and intellectual stimulation this has brought me. The anonymous Johns Hopkins University Press reader, who provided thoughtful reflections on organi- zation and meticulous attention to detail, and the copyeditor, Joanne Allen, went
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