SOURCE: Hobby, Elaine. “Romantic Love-Poetry.” In Virtue of Necessity: English Women's Writing, 1646-1688, Virago Press, Ltd., 1988, pp. 128-64.

[In the following excerpt, Hobby examines Killigrew's collection of poems as a response to the male-defined conventions of courtly love poetry.]

The writers who followed Katherine Philips, although they made frequent reference to her name, did not share her emphasis on women's friendship. Their poems, by contrast, addressed the vagaries of romantic love between men and women as it was described (or constructed) by courtly love conventions. In taking this as their subject-matter, they were at one level pursuing a quite acceptable course. A woman's main task, according to this male poetic orthodoxy, was to love and be lovable. A woman writing about love, therefore, was addressing herself to the issue that should be central to her existence. Composing such poetry, especially if it were to be set to music, was a sufficiently respectable female occupation for several examples of songs by otherwise unknown women writers to be included in Aphra Behn's collections of airs and lyrics in 1685 and 1692.¹ The ‘several hands’ whom she chose to include in her 1685 Miscellany included a Mrs Taylor, author of three songs, and at least one ‘lady of quality’ who wrote a song and made a translation of some verses by Sappho. The Miscellany Poems collected in 1692 include one poem ‘made by a fair lady who is since dead’.² All of these are love poems in some sense, rejoicing in or lamenting the lot of women in love.

Male love poetry, in a combination of courtly love and neo-Platonic conventions, assumed that the prime or even sole function of a woman was, through her virtue or yielding beauty, to act as a link to heaven for the man, or at least to provide heavenly delights. (The Restoration court rakes and ballad-writers frequently equated this with purely physical pleasures.) Traditionally, women were also divided into two categories, the angelic and desirable mistress (beloved) being contrasted favourably with the rest of her sex. The convention included fear that the beloved would lapse into the more usual female pattern, and prove unyielding or unfaithful. A sorrowful plaint and angry railing against the mistress who has not played the role assigned to her was therefore a common subject of such poetry.

The close relationship between this reproof of an individual fickle mistress and a bitter hatred of all women is shown extremely clearly in Robert Gould's poem Love Given O're, 1682. The occasion for this poem is said in its opening lines to be the infidelity of ‘Silvia’ (a conventional name for the beloved). It opens lamenting her desertion of him, but swiftly becomes a diatribe against womankind. The memory of Eve is evoked as proof of women's evil, hell is said to be full of the female sex (who, Lucifer is warned, are no doubt plotting revolution), and femininity equated with lasciviousness.³

The writings of contemporary female poets show that women who were subjected to such glorifying addresses from men were not blind to the limitations and implications of these male conventions. Sarah Fige takes issue directly with Robert Gould, making an overt challenge to the ideas promoted in Love Given O're. Ephelia both inverts the conventions and shows how miserable they actually are. In writing songs for her plays, Aphra Behn composes poems which, when taken out of their dramatic contexts, appear wholly bound by male thought structures; elsewhere, however, she exposes and rejects the whole framework. Anne Killigrew abjures love altogether, repelled by male misogyny, and retreats into an avowal of virtue. Jane Barker also prefers singleness to marriage, recommending that women acquire practical skills to make themselves socially useful in their independence. …

Anne Killigrew's Poems were brought out by her father shortly after her death. Since the book was advertised in The Observator on 2 November 1685, it seems likely that it actually appeared earlier than the title page date of 1686.⁴ Some of the poetry, at least, had earlier circulated in manuscript. A poem she addresses ‘To my Lord Colrane’ records her gratitude at his complimentary reaction to her verses (p. 49). This must have been particularly welcome to her. ‘Upon the saying that my Verses were made by Another’ reveals that her authorship had been questioned, due to the fact, she says, that she had rejected ‘gold’ for ‘purer fame’: that is, had opted for manuscript circulation rather than selling her works for publication.

Her self-portrait is prefixed to the book, and her skill as a painter is mentioned by John Dryden in his laudatory poem which prefaces her book. The general argument of his verses, however, presents her not as a conscious artist, but as the passive recipient of her father's abilities: she is informed ‘Thy father was transfused into thy blood’. In Dryden's ‘complimentary’ assessment, the products of her mind were not truly hers, but the work of ‘nature’ in her, not her art. His poem does, however, draw attention to the central problem addressed by Killigrew. The dissoluteness of the Restoration court was producing a lifestyle and a poetry that was lurid and offensive. In an interesting and significant turn of phrase, he accuses himself and his male associates of having prostituted the muse.

O gracious God! How far have we
Prophaned thy heavenly gift of poesy
Made prostitute and profligate the muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordained above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love?

Anne Killigrew was a Maid of Honour to Mary of Modena, the Duchess of York. She was therefore part of a household identified as opposing the profligacy of King Charles and his court. Killigrew responded to the disparagement of women that this reduction of her sex to a mere tool for men's physical pleasure involved, by abjuring sensuality altogether. In some respects this can be regarded as a defeat, a retreat from a right to involvement in such concerns, into a feminine purity wholly dominated by concern for chastity. On the other hand, though, it could be perceived as a rebellion against male baseness. Anne Killigrew was not concerned to preserve her reputation for her husband's sake—she had none—nor for her father's, but for herself.

The structure of the opening of her Poems can be seen to act out just such a withdrawal. The first poem, ‘Alexandreis’, is a fragment, left unfinished, Killigrew's editor (her father?) tells us, because ‘this young lady’ was not yet ‘equal to so great a work’ (Poems, p. 5). It is certainly the case that ‘Alexandreis’ has a noble theme, and that its apparent subject-matter, the conquests of Alexander the Great, would normally be considered beyond the scope of a gentle poetess. However, although the poem opens by praising Alexander as ‘the man that never equal knew’ (implicitly, thereby, denying notions of general male superiority), the reader's attention is swiftly deflected to women. These enter the text surreptitiously, as what at first glance appears to be a depiction of Alexander's troops turns into something different.

Dire scarlet plumes adorned their haughty crests,
And crescent shields did shade their shining breasts,
A bow and quiver rattle by their side;
Their hands a knotty well-tried spear did bear,
Jocund they seemed, and quite devoid of fear.
These warlike virgins were.

(pp. 3-4)

The poem breaks off at the point that the Amazons' leader, Thalestris, steps forward to address Alexander. It is as if Anne Killigrew could not break through any further social bounds.

In her next poem, ‘To the Queen’ (pp. 6-8), Killigrew says she has turned her attention to a much greater subject than the warfare that was the ostensible theme of ‘Alexandreis’: ‘Victories, laurels, conquered kings / Took place among inferior things’ (p. 7). She accepts and welcomes the idea of withdrawing from the world to concern herself solely with more feminine matters. More can be achieved through virtuous womanly influence than through warfare, she says.

No, give me prowess, that with charms
Of grace and goodness, not with harms,
Erects a throne i'th'inward parts,
And rules men's wills, but with their hearts.

(pp. 7-8)

In the context of the recent upheavals of the revolution, it is easy to read these remarks as being addressed as much to the likes of Hester Biddle and Anna Trapnel … as they are concerned with Amazons. Women cannot and should not interfere with such matters, in the view of the Restoration courtier. Her rejection of Alexander and Thalestris as a theme is also a refusal of Cromwell and his more radical allies.

No more I'll praise on thee bestow,
Who to ill deeds their glories owe;
Who build their Babels of renown,
Upon the poor oppressed crown.

(p. 7)

As a royalist, she is wholly opposed to the overthrow of the monarchy that was wrought by an earlier generation. Michael Heyd has shown how the concept of ‘enthusiasm’ was used against all radical, and even liberal, thought after the Restoration to disaffect people from earlier alliances. The egalitarian prophets of rebellion were dismissed as crazy ‘enthusiasts’, whose ideas and lifestyles must be rejected if a stable and happy kingdom were to be re-established.⁵ This idea occurs in key passages in Killigrew's poetry, as she commits herself to the calm and even rule of reason. ‘The Miseries of Man’, for instance, ends with an appeal to reason to take control of her emotions, using language that might also be applied to the management of the state.

For shame then raise thyself as from a sleep,
The long neglected reins let Reason keep,
The chariot mount, and use both lash and bit,
Nobly resolve, and thou wilt firmly sit:
Fierce Anger, boggling Fear, Pride prancing still,
Bounds-hating Hope, Desire which nought can fill
Are stubborn all, but thou mayst give them law;
Th'are hard-mouthed horses, but they well can draw.
Lash on, and the well governed chariot drive,
Till thou a victor at the goal arrive,
Where the free soul does all her burden leave,
And joys commensurate to herself receive.

(p. 42)

Personal happiness and salvation have become synonymous with abandonment of the passions of both love and rebellion.

‘The Miseries of Man’ is also of interest because its narrator is a young nymph who at the beginning of the poem retreats into a grotto. This imagery originates in the courtly love tradition. The important change, however, is that in Killigrew's poem the nymph speaks of wide-ranging matters of life and death, rather than withdrawing there to lament some lost love. The retreat, for Killigrew, is one that is away from the uncertainties of civil war, and also from the thing that replaced it: the vice of Charles II's court. Her poem ‘To the Queen’ describes Mary as the firm proponent of virtue's cause, valiantly surviving despite the attacks made on her. Although this clearly has particular contemporary referents—she mentions attempts being made to banish Mary for her Catholicism—there is also a more general revulsion at immorality at stake. Her references to masks and ulcerous faces conjure up images of the ravages wrought by venereal disease.

How dare bold vice unmasked walk,
And like a giant proudly stalk?
When virtue's so exalted seen,
Armed and triumphant in the queen?
How does its ulcerous face appear
When heavenly beauty is so near?

She conceives herself as the dove confined in Noah's ark, sheltering from the deluge, awaiting the day when the floods will recede, as God has promised. This is the image that is echoed in her last printed poem, which is unfinished, where she calls on her soul to leave behind the dross of daily life.

          Arise my dove, from midst of pots arise,
                              Thy sullied habitation leave,
                                        To dust no longer cleave,
Unworthy they of heaven that will not view the skies.
                              Thy native beauty reassume.
                              Prune each neglected plume,
                              Till more than silver white.
                    Than burnished gold more bright,
Thus ever ready stand to take thy eternal flight.

For Anne Killigrew, writing poetry is an escape from the confines of sexual exploitation. Her three ‘Pastoral Dialogues’ all use this form which is usually preoccupied with love and wooing to address quite different questions. The first of these consists of Dorinda's attempt to wean her beloved Alexis from his devotion to Lycoris (whose name, of course, signifies ‘lust’). She offers to write poetry for him if he will devote himself to her virgin purity and abandon his obsession with a woman who is unchaste (p. 8). In the second ‘Pastoral Dialogue’ the courtship is performed by a man, Amintor. His shepherdess at first listens tolerantly while he assures her that he loves her for her piety, and will not desert her as other men have left their beloveds. She firmly refuses him, however, and sends him on his way: ‘Shepherd, no more: enough it is that I / Thus long to love, have listened patiently’ (p. 62). The last of these dialogues has a sage as its main speaker, who sets out in no uncertain terms that women are more endangered by love than men are. Once she is in love, she loses power over herself and falls under a man's sway. Far better to abandon passion altogether, and to keep herself constrained by the gentle bands of reason.

Remember when you love, from that same hour
Your peace you put into your lover's power:
From that same hour from him you laws receive,
And as he shall ordain, you joy, or grieve,
Hope, fear, laugh, weep; Reason aloof does stand,
Disabled both to act, and to command.
Oh cruel fetters! rather wish to feel
On your soft limbs, the galling weight of steel;
Rather to bloody wounds oppose your breast.
No ill, by which the body can be pressed
You will so sensible a torment find
As shackles on your captived mind.
The mind from heaven its high descent did draw,
And brooks uneasily any other law
Than what from Reason dictated shall be.
Reason, a kind of inmate deity,
Which only can adapt to ev'ry soul
A yoke so fit and light, that the control
All liberty excells; so sweet a sway,
The same 'tis to be happy, and obey;
Commands so wise, and with rewards so dressed,
That the according soul replies ‘I'm blessed’.

(pp. 69-70)

… By the 1680s, it would seem, women were turning their eyes to the power of well-trained reason, rather than to religion, to find a way of developing independence and self-respect. It is important to note, however, that the writers discussed here are a quite different group from those who were active in the radical sects. The sectaries were losing ground with the defeat of the revolution, and indeed were being silenced by the friends and families of these court poets. The sects themselves, most notably the Society of Friends, were also closing down the kinds of activities permissible to women, and women who earlier had shouted and argued for changes in the world were now preoccupied with caring for orphans and the sick. Under the developing bourgeois-aristocratic alliance of the later seventeenth century, it was only royalist and more wealthy women, on the whole, who had the chance to write.⁶ It is not surprising that they challenged the restrictions of femininity in ways quite different from their predecessors of another class and political allegiance. They strove to support monarchy and male power in the state, while arguing for the right to develop their own intellectual abilities. In this, they had far more in common with the exiled royalist Margaret Cavendish than they ever could have with a Mary Cary or even a Lady Eleanor. Although they wrote explicitly on behalf of women, their vision of ‘womanhood’ did not extend very far down the social scale. Anne Killigrew's recoil from her sympathetic description of poverty presents this state as something unknown to anyone: anyone who was anyone, of course.

What shall I say of poverty, whence it flows
To miserable man so many woes?
Ridiculous evil which too oft we prove
Does laughter cause, where it should pity move;
Solitary ill, into which no eye,
Though ne'er so curious, ever cares to pry.

(Poems, p. 35)

The remainder of her poem changes direction, to discuss the danger of passions and enthusiasm, and recommend substituting the rule of firm reason. Both Ephelia and Aphra Behn lament the evils of wealth, but in both cases they seem more concerned with the demeaning effects of commercialism on the ‘higher’ values of a pre-bourgeois society, than with the insufficiencies allowed to the poor.⁷ Ephelia describes the effects of the discovery of gold as a loss of meritocracy.

How happy was the world before man found
Those metals, Nature hid beneath the ground! …
No man did needless merit now regard,
None virtue sought, none valour would reward,
None learning valued, none poor wit did mind,
None honoured age, few were to beauty kind;
All gold adored, all riches did admire,
Beyond being rich, no man did now aspire.

(Female Poems pp. 23-5)

These poets belonged to a class where their role was being ever further reduced, to make them mere ornaments of men, proof of their husbands' social status. Their lives became circumscribed by the conflicting ideologies that make up the courtly love conventions, where woman is both virgin and whore, both a lusty creature of the devil, and man's surest way to heaven, in a world where she exists in him and for him. In other sectors of society, meanwhile, women were faced with the problem of how to earn their living as the number of commercial roles open to them narrowed. As some women turned to write about education and virginal virtue, others turned their attention to the acquisition of practical skills with monetary value.

Notes

1. In 1655 the singer Mary Knight had contributed a poem to Lawes's Second Book of Ayres.

2. David Vieth, Attribution in Restoration Poetry: A Study of Rochester's ‘Poems’ of 1680, New Haven, Connecticut, 1963, also refers to some manuscript poems by women at the Bodleian Library. Since Behn herself was dead by 1692, perhaps this second collection was assembled by someone else.

3. Gould's poem is one in a series of anonymously printed attacks on women and defences of them which have been omitted from this discussion. The first of this series is a collection of four poetic attacks on women, collectively entitled Female Excellence, 1679; the first poem in the book, which might well have appeared either then or subsequently as a separate, is ‘A General Satyr on Women’. This book, and in particular the first poem, was replied to in 1688 by Sylvia's Revenge, which has wrongly been attributed to Richard Ames. The style of this forthright riposte makes me believe it is the work of Aphra Behn. In 1692 the debate was continued by a poem which, though anonymous, is commonly believed to be the work of Richard Ames: Sylvia's Complaint. This poem is closely based on the earlier Sylvia's Revenge, and I believe that a misreading of an ambiguous reference to Sylvia's Revenge in the preface to Sylvia's Complaint is the source of the mistaken attribution of the earlier text to Ames. Sylvia's Complaint also draws heavily on another early defence of women, Triumphs of Female Wit, 1683. Triumphs is a collection of several poems, some of them ostensibly by women. The main thrust of the pamphlet, however, is an attack on the uselessness of some aspects of male university education, and I think it likely that the book is entirely the product of male endeavour. Regardless of whether the authors of Triumphs are male or female, however, it is clearly a source of Ames's Sylvia's Complaint. Between them, these poems provide rich material for comparing male and female strategies in defending women.

4. Richard Morton, (ed.), Poems (1686) by Mrs Anne Killigrew: A Facsimile Reproduction with an Introduction, Gainesville, Florida, 1967.

5. Michael Heyd, ‘The Reaction to Enthusiasm in the Seventeenth Century: Towards an Integrative Approach’, Journal of Modern History, 53, 1981.

6. This leads Joan Kinnaird to argue, wrongly, that there was a causal connection between royalism and ‘feminism’ (‘Mary Astell and the Conservative Contribution to English Feminism’, Journal of British Studies, 19, 1979).

7. Aphra Behn, ‘The Golden Age’, Poems, 1684, pp. 7-12.