It also propels the poem forward; as there are no hard breaks brought on by periods, other punctuation such as colons, commas, and semicolons instead serve to show the reader how one thought or image leads to the next. Mathew Arnold had come to this beach with his young . Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. More birds will enter the sense imagery of the poem, but not until near the end. But even this conventional estimate of her poetry as descriptive rather than inspired or reflective appears misleading. , "Romantic Period in English Literature," in A Handbook to Literature, 9th ed., Prentice Hall, 2003, pp. But here the attempt at imitative harmony seems only futile, not "poetic." FINCH, ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA (1661-1720) Anne Finch was born at Sydmonton near Newbury. The horse's slow pace across the field seems sneaky and his large shadow frightening, until the sound of his eating grass sets the speaker at ease. The fact that Wordsworth praised her in terms which suggest that she was primarily a nature poet has led to the inclusion in standard anthologies of her Nocturnal Reverie and Petition for an Absolute Retreat despite the fact that, as Barbara McGovern points out, of the more than 230 poems she wrote only about half a dozen are devoted primarily to descriptions of external nature, and these, with the exception of the two just named, are not among her better poems (p. 78). The speaker repeatedly longs to relieve herself of the trappings of a stylized femininity, and to realign "inside" with "outside" in a new form of poetic, philosophical, psychical wholeness: she asks for "plain, and wholesome Fare" (33); for clothes "light, and fresh as May" (65), and "Habit cheap and new" (67); for "No Perfumes [to] have there a Part, / Borrow'd from the Chymists Art" (72-73); and when she "must be fine," she will "In natural Coulours shine" (96-97). Many scholars have argued that the seeds of romanticism are in the Augustan Age. Poetry, Finch acknowledges, is dangerous, because it becomes a public act, its creator enters into the realm of evaluation with its arbitrary criteria and its arbiters of taste. Anne died, leaving Thomas with the formidable task of rearing four young children alone. The speaker evokes a strong sense of serenity and escape in "A Nocturnal Reverie." In this sense "The Petition" stands as a potent manifesto of a way of composing poetry that could resist the pressure of writing to satisfy the demands of patriarchal readers, a constraint to which, Finch reveals elsewhere, she often felt compelled to succumb. The point is moot, however, since even "your Eyes" have succumbed to the false show of Art's disguises. Again, Finch enlivens nature through personification. In the daytime, in man's world, there are the worries of everyday life, the complications of living in society, work that must be done, and sounds that are not relaxing; however, she adds that people continue their pursuit of pleasure in the day. The final years before Finch's death in 1720 seem to have been filled with adversity, and much of her later poetry places a marked emphasis on themes of religion and the significance of human suffering. Some scholars claim that this poem was a pre-romantic poem. Finch is suggesting that nature can teach and minister to people wise enough to submit to it. . She explains that the images "are common to melancholic verse: moonlight, an owl's screech, darkened groves and distant caverns, falling waters, winds, ancient ruins, and shadows that cast an eerie gloom over the entire isolated scene." In short, the speaker brings nature to life in the same way that describing a person makes him or her seem like a real person to those who do not know him or her. . Despite what it says on the cover, this book is definitely not "a true story". Stanesa, Jamie, "Anne Finch," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. The authors explore topics such as marriage, roles of women in religion and politics, working women, and the separate society shared only by women. The speaker is dreading the morning because that is when they must face the stress of the 'real world'. At the same time, though, the poem's depiction of this pastoral Retreat is undeniably laced with references to the very human world it purports to eschew, as when the "Willows, on the Banks" are shown to be "Gather'd into social Ranks" (134-35). Introduction There she befriended other young women with literary interests, and Finch began to dabble in poetry. 159-78. Create a digital "Hall of Fame" (in the form of a Web site or multimedia slideshow) presenting your findings in writing and in images. The ambiguity of "allow'd" conveys the point exactly: that women have been excluded from the ranks of male poets not because they can't produce good work, but because of the "mistaken rules" of men who won't concede women as equal participants in artistic creation ("The Introduction"). James was less interested in a mutual sharing of power, and quickly grabbed power back from Parliament. Written in 1713, Finch's "A Nocturnal Reverie" is among the works that has garnered serious critical attention for the poet. No doubt her nocturnal fox skipped sleeping in the morning to ensure she got the food on time. Outwardly, the poem remains faithful to the conventional structure of ode and lyric, organizing itself around the dyad of (masculine) poet and (feminine) muse. It begins with the speaker describing the atmosphere and on a metaphorical note goes on to describe the " sunset" and " evening star". The night has always held strange and wonderful things, and living in a reverie is often part of the fairytale world. What is a Nocturnal Reverie about? A true icon and inspiration passed. Brower, Reuben A., "Lady Winchilsea and the Poetic Tradition of the Seventeenth Century," in Studies in Philology, Vol. (February 22, 2023). During this time, England saw its own Industrial Revolution, major political reform, and the introduction of such philosophical perspectives as Utilitarianism. Taking the pseudonym "Ardelia," she wrote poetry about her husband, whom she loved and honored. The pastoral mode not only allowed her to write about love and passion in ways which, as a woman, she would not otherwise have been able to do with propriety, it also enabled her publicly to criticize her own age from the standpoint of a moral spokesperson confronting the ills of society. . Such variety implies another form of "winding," the trying-on of different poetic styles (and selves) that manifest the search for a way of writing that could both legitimize her and solidify an interior sense of poetic integrity. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. This is, perhaps, of particular importance, since Finch was, as Barbara McGovern points out, displaced not only by her gender but also by her political ideology and her religious affiliation. "A Nocturnal Reverie" by Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661 - 1720) From Winchilsea, Anne (Kingsmill) Finch, Countess of. Description, a poetic strategy that fuses the eye and its object, seems to overlook the skepticism inherent in "Upon the Death of Sir William Twisden" as well as in "To The Nightingale," both of which presuppose a disjunction between subject and object. Most notably, Augustan poets used classical forms to make modern statements. ): The speaker here invites a certain kind of looking, one so completely stripped of artifice that the soul's integrity would be appropriately revealed through the windows of the eyes. Finch, however, opts for the more subtle device of personification, bringing her setting to life through figures of speech that humanize the natural elements. She is one of the first ever women to make her living . After enduring failing health for a number of years, Finch died on August 5, 1720. Using personification, Finch breathes life into the natural elements in "A Nocturnal Reverie" so thoroughly that the scene seems populated with friends, old and new, rather than with trees, animals, and breezes. This distinction is linked to Henry More's contention that while "a Nightingale may vary with her voice into a multitude of interchangeable Notes, and various Musical falls and risings should she but sing one Hymn or Hallelujah, I should deem her no bird but an Angel." Biblical allusions, or references, appear in her work, as do metaphysical tendencies in imagery and verse that combines the spiritual and the logical. Ultimately, Finch's use of personification evokes the theme of nature as a living community. The liberation the poet finds . The poem opens on a serene and gentle remark. Instead, Finch initially at least wants to universalize the opposition radically, by stripping it of the customary attributes of gender, by elevating the poet, muse, and nightingale to ideal categories. A modern edition of her work was published in 1903, and various poems appear in major anthologies and studies of women's writing. The cowslip is sleepy, and the foxglove goes pale. Download Citation | Contrasting Nature, Gender, and Genre in Anne Finch's "A Nocturnal Reverie" | Anne Finch came to be considered one of the most influential female figures of the Augustan era . In this research the poem of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea, "A Nocturnal Reverie" will be analyzed from an ecological perspective. The Thomas Gray Archive is a collaborative digital archive and research project devoted to the life and work of eighteenth-century poet, letter-writer, and scholar Thomas Gray (1716-1771), author of the acclaimed 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' (1751). By acknowledging a gulf between the nightingale's song and the poet's speech, Finch tacitly adopts the point of view of theorists like Hobbes and Locke who deny the naturalness of the received link between signifier and signified. He writes that, as in other examples of her poetry, here "poetic consciousness is envisaged as an emptiness or lack which seeks to coincide with a peace or plenitude that it attributes to something outside of itself." The speaker is so at ease in the natural setting that she dreads returning to the life she leads in the civilized world. Zephyr was the Greek god of the west wind, which was considered the most gentle and inviting wind. The S, Auden, W. H. Who were the major poets of the time? Iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets = heroic couplets. "The Introduction" " A Letter to Glowworms seize the right moment to show off their light, knowing that they can only do so for a limited time. Examples in "A Nocturnal Reverie" include the owl directing the visitor where to go, the grass intentionally standing up straight, the glowworms enjoying showing off their light, the aromas that choose when they will float through the air, the night sky and the hills having faces, and the portrayal of the entire scene as one in which all of nature celebrates together. Edmund Gosse is typical in his assessment of her capacity for "seeing nature and describing what she sees" and so of offering "accurate transcripts of country life." Poetry gave satire another venue, but poetry grew in its purpose in the Augustan Age. Anne Finch uses night and day to create a metaphor comparing the busy world and peaceful solitude. STYLE By all accounts, the marriage was happy for both of them. At the same time, her work reflects knowledge of and respect for seventeenth-century poetry and the conventions that characterize it. The rhyme scheme and the rhythm are held consistently over the course of all fifty lines. On the one hand, Finch could be outspoken in her critique of male resistance to women's poetry, but on the other, Finch herself clearly worries about how her poetry will be received, and thus seems at times to uphold the very standards against which her own writing might be doomed to fall short. Today: Women are some of the most popular, celebrated, and frequently published poets. Either way, the appeal of the nocturnal setting she describes is that it affords her the opportunity to escape completely her humdrum daytime life. Then James and his wife gave birth to an heir, which provoked his opponents to take action. But Augustan literature was not merely biting wit and lengthy verse and prose. The grass seems to be freshly grown and maybe even recently rained upon. By the time the reader gets to line 39, in which the speaker describes her relaxed spirit surrendering to high-level spiritual thoughts, the reader is already accustomed to an almost stream-of-consciousness feel. Neoclassical poetry, pre-romantic poetry is characterized by the following features . The serenity and seriousness of her spirit embraces the charm and joy of nature in such a way that her very soul is engaged. The implications of her loss of confidence in that discourse are not confined to "To The Nightingale" but can be seen, in different ways, in such poems as "A Nocturnal Reverie" and "The Bird." In short, how can, and should, a woman write? Mendelson, Sarah, and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England: 1550-1720, Oxford University Press, 2000. I would add to these convincing readings the possibility that the petition is a suit for and mapping out of both a place and a process of writing, which could be protected from the incursions of artifice, ambition, dishonesty, and isolating competitiveness. the " coppice gate" at the " dregs" of the winter day. It appears in 2003's Anne Finch: Countess of Winchilsea: Selected Poems, edited by Denys Thompson. In Great Britain, the dominant writers of what is considered the Augustan Age were Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Sir Richard Steele, and Joseph Addison. This makes it easier for the reader to surrender to the imagery of the poem. In a sense the poem argues that the mind must resist this seduction into illusion and hence must confront the unpleasant fact that "Nature (unconcern'd for our relief) / Persues her settl'd path, her fixt, and steaddy course" (lines 27-28). Philomel was a person who, according the Greek mythology, was turned into a nightingale. He feels joy and pain, an ambivalent response. All of these elements make it easy to see why so many scholars are anxious to line "A Nocturnal Reverie" up with the classics of romantic poetry. In the supplement to the preface of his and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1815, the renowned romantic poet William Wordsworth praised "A Nocturnal Reverie" for its imagery in describing nature. The speaker is saddened that dawn is coming and she must return to the harsh reality of the world and the day. 1616- Death of William Shakespeare. Although it is fifty lines long, there is no period until the very end. MAJOR WORKS: This assessment of the natural world versus man's world is very much in line with the romantic way of thinking. DIED: 1973, Vienna, Austria 45, No. Finch thus makes opposite use of a convention which previous poetic generations had used to affirm the validity of poetry as inspired discourse. Bussey has a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. The image (the psychical "syntax," as it were) of arriving at a feminized realm of writing and psychic pleasure through "Windings" and "Shade" works to establish an opposition far more pointed (if deceptively counterintuitive) than a dichotomy between an idealized, pure, female landscape and the corrupted involutions of patriarchal civilization. The universality of the figure of the poet who "when best he sings, is plac'd against a Thorn" (line 13) depends upon a figure herself mute, unable to make herself intelligible. Anne Kingsmill Finch. Although, as Barbara McGovern points out, there was a tradition of melancholic poetry at the period, Finch's poem is unique in that it combines an intensely personal approach with rigorous analysis and stark realism, and because the subject raises issues regarding both the nature of poetic commitment and the right of a woman to become a poet. She was buried in Eastwell. Skip to main content.us. In the twentieth century, Finch's work was rediscovered and appreciated. She longs to stay in her reverie because it is an escape, real or imagined, from the life that makes her feel oppressed. We will write a custom Essay on Feminism in "The Introduction" and "A Nocturnal Reverie" by Finch specifically for you. Finch portrays nature in "A Nocturnal Reverie" as a lively and animated community of animals, trees, flowers, plants, clouds, aromas, grass, wind, and water. For this reason, critics took another look at "A Nocturnal Reverie" and many concluded that the poem is truly a pre-romantic work. Although some of Finch's work was published beginning in 1701, it was not until the appearance of her 1713 collection Miscellany Poems that she began to enjoy limited recognition by her contemporaries. The poem is a neat and even fifty lines long, composed of twenty-five heroic couplets. Miller, Christopher R., "Staying Out Late: Anne Finch's Poetics of Evening," in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol. Her early poetry reflects on the days she spent in court and how much she enjoys those memories; her later poetry reveals a mature understanding of the gravity of the politics surrounding the throne, and the seriousness of taking a stand for one's loyalties. As a result of their persistent Jacobitism they were exiled from court and faced a future of persecution and financial hardship. English Augustan poets followed suit, writing verse that followed conventions and demonstrated mastery of language and technique. Everything from the sights, sounds, and smells of the night creates an almost perfect world that comforts her and allows her the luxury of going deeply into her own thoughts and feelings. The retreat of "The Petition" can thus be read as a locationfor example, of solidarity with other women, in what Carol Barash describes as a "rethink[ing of] the pastoral topos of political retreat as a place where women's shared political sympathies can be legitimately expressed"; or a processan elaborated metaphor for what Charles Hinnant reads as "a philosophic ascent of the human mind" (150). The essay "Dream Children; A Reverie" presents Lamb's longing for a family he always pined for but he never had. The poem's speaker, a middle-aged man who has fallen deeply in love, tells a mocking friend to leave him alone and "let him love" already. The kids are disappointed by their presents, the stepdad feels chilly, the dog pukes, the mom has some sex dreams about a man who isn't her husband, there's a reek of human . The-e stern religion quenched the unwilling flame, There died the best of passions, love and fame. To most, the idea of a woman writing serious poetry was still a bit far-fetched. By way of unfolding this set of questions, I would like to argue for Finch's "The Petition for an Absolute Retreat" as an ars poetica that takes the mobius strip of writing and specularity as its thematic and structural principle. Anne Kingsmill was born in April, 1661 Some Other poems From of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea Include. It brings a glint of laughter on faces and tears in our eyes. Having the English military on his country's side would make all the difference. Still, it has been poems such as "A Nocturnal Reverie" and "The Spleen" that have kept Finch's work in the canon of English literature of interest to scholars. Out of this came a view of the individual as very important, along with a deep appreciation for art and nature. "A Nocturnal Reverie" contains qualities of both Augustan and romantic literature, therefore a look at the literary-historical context of the poem's composition helps determine where it properly belongs. Because there is not a large body of work by Finch that explores romantic themes, it seems unlikely that she was working out a new philosophy in "A Nocturnal Reverie.". There is only one figure in the poem, which places emphasis on an individual and the value of that individual's experience and imagination. Some other poems from of Anne Finch uses night and day to create a metaphor the., but poetry grew in its purpose in the civilized world major poets of the individual as very important along... The S, Auden, W. H. Who were the major poets of the natural setting that she dreads to. This came a view of the natural setting that she dreads returning to imagery! 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