Aphra Behn, born around 1640 and dead on 16 April 1689, occupies a singular position in English literary history: she was a successful Restoration playwright, a daring poet, an innovator in prose fiction, a political writer, and, most importantly for later generations, a woman who openly made writing her profession. Her precise origins remain uncertain, a fact that has invited both scholarly caution and romantic spec…
“Nor shall my pen be frighted from its way, by any reflection on the subject of my writing.”
Neighbourhood:
LGBTQ+ Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
Katherine Philips, born Katherine Fowler on 1 January 1632 and dead at only thirty-two on 22 June 1664, achieved a distinction that would have seemed improbable in the unsettled England of her youth: she became a celebrated poet while she was still alive, and she did so as a woman writing in forms and subjects conventionally claimed by men. Known to her readers and friends as “Orinda,” Philips fashioned poems of frie…
Neighbourhood:
LGBTQ+ Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Spirituality, Wonder
