Includes bibliographical references (pages 21-28) and index.
Contents:
List of illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Timeline. Introduction -- Further reading. Anne Bradstreet : From The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America (1650) -- From Several Poems (1678) . Hester Pulter. Katherine Philips : From the "Tutin" manuscript -- From the "Tutin" manuscript, reverse -- From Poems (1664) -- From Poems (1667). Margaret Cavendish : From Philosophical Fancies (1653) -- From Poems and Fancies (1664). Lucy Hutchinson : From De rerum natura -- From British Library, additional MS 17018 -- From Elegies -- From Order and Disorder -- From Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. Textual introduction -- Textual notes -- Index of first lines.
Summary:
This anthology brings together extensive selections of poetry by the five most prolific and prominent women poets of the English Civil War period: Anne Bradstreet, Hester Pulter, Margaret Cavendish, Katherine Philips and Lucy Hutchinson. It presents these poems in modern-spelling, clear-text versions for classroom use, and for ready comparison to mainstream editions of male poets' work. The anthology reveals the diversity of women's poetry in the mid-seventeenth century, across political affiliations and forms of publication. Notes on the poems and an introduction explain the contexts of Civil War, religious conflict, and scientific and literary development. The anthology enables a more comprehensive understanding of seventeenth-century women's poetic culture, both in its own right and in relation to prominent male poets such as Marvell, Milton and Dryden.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.