The reputation of Katherine Philips.
Item
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Title
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The reputation of Katherine Philips.
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Identifier
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AAI9029985
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identifier
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9029985
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Creator
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Trefousse, Rashelle F.
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Contributor
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Adviser: W. Speed Hill
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Date
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1990
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, English | Women's Studies | Biography
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Abstract
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The seventeenth century world was fraught with problems for all women who had some desire to go in any sense beyond what had been set down as requirements for the conduct of their lives. For writing women these problems were multiplied. It is true that some women of the upper class were allowed responsibilities connected with the care of their estates (especially during the time of the Civil War). It is true that among the women of the upper class some who had literary inclinations were able to write without much interference and even to have their works published. It is true that Katherine Philips, although not born into an aristocratic family, but moving in those circles probably as a result of her mother's marriage to Sir Richard Philips, managed to write poems, to study two foreign languages, French well enough to translate two plays of Corneille which were actually performed on the stage, and to achieve thereby considerable renown as a writer in her lifetime and beyond.;In examining reputation as a concept, three bases of it are explored in this study--taste, fashion, and rules of thought. The latter may be defined as the prevailing notions of language and its use in literature, particularly its connection with truth and reality. Comparisons of language theory behind criticism and behind admission of writers into the canon constitute the foundation of this discussion of both the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries.;To get to an understanding of the basis of Philips' reputation, this work analyzes with some thoroughness her poems, her letters, and her translations. Philips, a poet of her time, largely followed the standards and conventions of her era in choice of subject matter and form. Nevertheless, the poems on friendship with women which openly and freely demonstrate strong attachments between Philips and a few close friends, although unusual for the time, serve only to improve and promote her poetic reputation.;Katherine Philips' fame as a poet and her reputation as a person are closely interwoven, making it difficult to determine to what degree the high praise she received during her lifetime and the maintenance of her position in the canon for some decades after her death resulted from an appreciation of her poetic skill or of her personality.;Because of the changing attitudes toward women in both eras, the basis of the reputation of a woman poet in the seventeenth century and in the twentieth century have much in common. The reputation of Katherine Philips after a lapse of three centuries shows some surprising similarities to her recognition in her own time. It is this concept which forms the import of my study.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
