Katherine Philips and the Discourse of Virtue
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https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Katherine Philips and the Discourse of Virtue Tracy J. Byrne Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. University of Glasgow Department of English Literature March 2002 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may be published without the author's prior written consent. ProQuest Number: 10647853 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uesL ProQuest 10647853 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 GLASGOW^ UNIYERîirrV MBRARYf Il G 21 ooPU Abstract For many years after her death in 1664, Katherine Philips (The Matchless QrindaO was celebrated by admirers and commentators as an icon of female virtue and as an appropriately chaste model for other women writers. Modern analyses of Philips' writing have challenged this patriarchal construction of 'Qrinda', and today Philips is most commonly known as the author of potentially subversive and erotic poems on the subject of intimate female friendship. However, such analyses have tended to overlook the fact that virtue and the question of the virtuous life are recurring and dominant themes in Philips' writing. This thesis focusses on those themes. It examines the models of virtue constructed by Philips in her poetry and drama in the context of the religious, political, and philosophical discourses that informed seventeenth-century ideas concerning right conduct and the good life. The thesis questions the assumption that virtue in Philips' writing operates merely as a discourse of female (sexual) constraint or denial. It explores how Philips' representations of ideally virtuous men and women interact with and negotiate Early Modern conceptions of good statecraft and self-government. It demonstrates Philips' contribution to seventeenth-century debates around kingship, faith, and government, and her articulation of a subtle critique of the received wisdom that accounted women inferior in virtue to men. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the financial support of The British Academy, from whom I received a Postgraduate Studentship without which this work would not have been possible. I enjoyed the support of many people while I worked on this project, but particular thanks goes to my supervisor, Janet Todd, for her advice, wisdom, and critical insights, and to my friends Sophie, Sheila, and Esther for their generosity in all things. Special thanks are also owed to Gordon Fulton and Claire Carlin, who have been invaluable sources of encouragement and inspiration. The final stages of my work on the thesis have been made much more pleasurable thanks to a Fellowship with the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I am deeply grateful to Harold Coward and all of the staff and fellows at the Centre for their kindness, company and conversation, and for providing me with such a stimulating environment witliin which to complete this thesis. Finally, very special thanks to John for his continued support - financial and emotional - and for his unwavering confidence in me. Abbreviations Poems Katherine Philips, The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, vol. 1, The Poems, ed. Patrick Thomas (Stump Cross, Essex: Stump Cross Books, 1990). Letters Katherine Philips, The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, vol. 2, The Letters, ed. Patrick Thomas (Stump Cross, Essex: Stump Cross Books, 1990). Translations Katherine Philips, The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, vol. 3, The Translations, ed. G. Greer and R. Little (Stump Cross, Essex: Stump Cross Books, 1993). N. B. The first reference to each poem in each chapter is followed by the number of the poem as it appears in the Thomas edition. ni Contents Abstract page 1 Acknowledgments n Abbreviations iii Table of Contents iv Introduction Chapter 1: "To grow more like unto the Deity": doctrinal conflict and transcendent virtue in the religious poems 33 Chapter 2: "The great immortal man": models of male virtue in the occasional poems 71 Chapter 3: "Ours of Kinges the best": kingly virtue in the state panegyrics 105 Chapter 4: "Behold her self!": the good woman of the occasional poetry 131 Chapter 5: "Friendship's vast capacity": virtue and the poems of female friendship 168 Chapter 6: Virtue and the politics of Pompey 210 Conclusion 242 Bibliography 250 IV Introduction At last ('twas long indeed!) Orinda came, To ages yet to come an ever-glorious name; To virtuous Themes her well-tun'd lyre she strung. Of virtuous Themes in easy numbers sung. Thomas Rowe, 'Epistle to Daphnis'^ Socrates demanded of Memnon what vertue was: There is answered Memnon, the vertue of a Man, of a Woman, of a Magistrate, of a private Man, of a Childe, of an old Man: What vertue meane you? Yea marry, this is very well, quoth Socrates) we were in search of one vertue, and thou bringest me a whole swarme. Michel de Montaigne, 'On Experience' This study is concerned with the representation of virtue in the poetry and drama of Katherine Philips, 'The Matchless Orinda' (1632-64). It focusses largely upon the historical figures who populate her writing and who are transformed by it into models of good conduct and exemplary character. It examines these models in the light of various religious, political and philosophical discourses around the subject of virtue and the virtuous life that dominated the period in which Philips lived and wrote. The introduction to this study begins, however, not with Philips as the author of models of virtue, but as the subject of such a discourse. Following her public success with Pompey in 1663 and particularly after her death from smallpox in 1664, Philips was feted by admirers and commentators as an icon of female virtue. The commendatory poems which preface the 'unauthorised' 1664 edition of her works and the posthumous ^ From Thomas Rowe's Poems on Several Occasions appended to Elizabeth Rowe, The Miscellaneous Works in Prose and Verse, of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe, vol. 2, 5th ed. (London, 1772), 365. ^ Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes of Montaigne, trans. John Florio (New York: The Modern Library, 1933), 111:13, 967. 1 1667 volume, as well as several other verse eulogies, contain many references to virtue, both as a subject of Philips' pen and as a personal trait of the poet herself. Abraham Cowley's ode, 'On Orinda's Poems', for example, commends Philips' 'inward virtue' which 'like a Lanthom's fair inclosed Light, / ... through the paper shines where she does w riteW illiam Temple's 'Upon the Death of Mrs Catherine Philips' includes the assertion that Philips 'taught sullen Vertue to be kinde' and rejoices that the poet 'more then Women knew how to be good'.^ Thomas Flatman, in his pindaric ode 'To the Memory of the incomparable Orinda', avers that 'all that can be said of vertuous Woman was [Philips'] due' and invites all of the female sex who would 'be pure as Angels are' to come to Orinda's tomb.^ One difficulty with the term 'virtue' is its abstractness - its ability to comprehend a potentially inexhaustible number of generally positive qualities. Courage, justice, humility and mercy were all much valued seventeenth-century virtues, and the singular word 'virtue' could imply one or all of these, as well as many others. But 'virtue' is also a relative term. This is a problem attested to by Montaigne's quotation (cited above) from Plato's Meno, a dialogue that explores the complexity of knowledge in general and of knowledge of virtue in particular. Montaigne was widely read in Early Modern England, both in French as well as in John Florio's English translation (first published in 1603 and reissued in 1613). In the preface to his translation, Florio remarks upon 'the diversities of copies, editions and volumes' of the French original available to him for his work. Nicholas Myers regards the year of Florio's translation as '[une] date fatidique pour la fortune de Montaigne en Angleterre': 'Des lors les Essais ne cesseront ^ Stanza 4,11. 7 & 8 (Translations 191-195). The ode was one of two commendatory poems to appear in the 1664 edition of Philips' works. Poems by the Incomparable, Mrs. K. P. 11. 18 & 28(Translations 205-207). Temple's poem was apparently made at the behest of his wife Dorothy, with whom Philips was acquainted (see Letters 137-142 for the only extant letter from Philips to Mrs Temple).