Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and Their Poetry

AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsPlan of the BookApproaching the PoetryThe Chapters1. IntroductionChanging ContextsSystems, Gender, and Persistent IssuesAgency and the ''Marked Marker''2. Anne Finch and What Women WroteThe Social and the FormalAnne Finch and Popular PoetryPoetry on PoetryThe Spleen as Legacy3. Women and Poetry in the Public EyePoetry as News and CritiqueThe Woman QuestionElizabeth Singer Rowe4. Hymns, Narratives, and Innovations in Religious PoetryThe Voice of ParaphraseThe Hymn as Personal LyricReligious Poetry as Subversive NarrativeDevout Soliloquies5. Friendship PoemsThe Legacy of Katherine PhilipsEncouragement and the CounteruniverseJane BreretonAdaptation and Ideology6. Retirement PoetryBeyond ConventionMemory, Time, and Elizabeth CarterReflection and Difference7. The ElegyWhat Did Women Write?Representative Composers: Darwall and SewardThe Elegy and Same-Sex DesireEntertainment and Forgetting8. The Sonnet, Charlotte Smith, and What Women WroteThe Sonnet and the PoliticalSonnet SequencesWomen Poets and the Spread of the SonnetThe Emigrants, Conversations, and Beachy HeadSmith as Transitional Poet9. ConclusionBiographies of the PoetsNotesBibliographyIndex

""One of the best and most significant books on eighteenth-century poetry to appear in recent years.""