Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment : The Making of a Canon, 1730–1820

This collection of twelve critical essays on women's poetry of the eighteenth century and enlightenment is the first to range widely over individual poets and to undertake a comprehensive exploration of their work. Experiment with genre and form, the poetics of the body, the politics of gender, revolutionary critique, and patronage, are themes of the collection, which includes discussions of the distinctive projects of Mary Leapor, Ann Yearsley, Helen Maria Williams, Joanna Baillie, Charlotte Smith, Anna Barbauld and Lucy Aikin. Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Sensuousness in the Poetry of Eighteenth-Century Women Poets....Pages 3-32 ‘All Passion Extinguish’ d’: The Case of Mary Chandler, 1687–1745....Pages 33-49 ‘A Dialogue’: Elizabeth Carter’s Passion for the Female Mind....Pages 50-63 Front Matter....Pages 65-65 Mary Seymour Montague: Anonymity and ‘Old Satyrical Codes’....Pages 67-80 The Female Poet and the Poetess: Two Traditions of British Women’s Poetry, 1780–1830....Pages 81-98 The Politics of Vision: Anna Barbauld’s ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven’....Pages 99-110 Front Matter....Pages 111-111 ‘This Muse-born Wonder’: the Occluded Voice of Ann Yearsley, Milkwoman and Poet of Clifton....Pages 113-126 The Maid and the Minister’s Wife: Literary Philanthropy in Regency York....Pages 127-141 Front Matter....Pages 143-143 Romantic Women Poets: Inscribing the Self....Pages 145-166 Homosocial Women: Martha Sansom, Constantia Grierson, Mary Leapor and Georgic Verse Epistle....Pages 167-183 Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets: Losses and Gains....Pages 184-198 Front Matter....Pages 199-199 Fashioning a Female Canon: Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and the Politics of the Anthology....Pages 201-215 Back Matter....Pages 216-226 This collection of 12 critical essays on women's poetry of the 18th century and enlightenment is the first to range widely over individual poets and to take a comprehensive exploration of their work. Research on previously unknown figures is included Edited By Isobel Armstrong And Virginia Blain. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.