The Poetry of Anne Kingsmill Finch - Volume 1: "Each Woman has her weakness, mine indeed; Is still to write, though hopeless to succeed."
()
About this ebook
Anne Finch (née Kingsmill), Countess of Winchilsea, was born in April 1661, the third child of Sir William Kingsmill of Sydmonton Court and his wife, Anne Haslewood. At age 5 months, Anne’s father died. His will required that his daughters receive financial support equal to their brother for their education. Her mother remarried the following year, 1662, to Sir Thomas Ogle. Tragically she was to die in 1664. However shortly before her death she wrote a will giving control of her estate to her second husband. The will was challenged, successfully, in a Court of Chancery by her uncle, William Haslewood. The result was that Anne and Bridget Kingsmill lived with their grandmother, Lady Kingsmill, in Charing Cross, London, while their brother lived with his uncle William Haslewood. In 1670 Lady Kingsmill filed her own Court of Chancery suit, demanding from Haslewood a share in the educational and support monies for Anne and Bridget. The court split custody and financial support between Haslewood and Lady Kingsmill. With the death of Lady Kingsmill in 1672, Anne and Bridget rejoined their brother to be raised by Haslewood. The sisters received a comprehensive and progressive education, a privilege few other women received, and Anne was immersed in Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, French and Italian languages, history, poetry, and drama. At Age 21 Anne left to take up a position at St James’s Palace to became one of six Maids of Honour to Mary of Modena (wife of James, Duke of York and later King James II). Among the other Maids of Honour was the poetess Anne Killigrew. Both Mary and Anne would play significant roles in Anne’s development as a writer and, in Mary’s case, as a role model for the poems. At the Palace she met and married the courtier and soldier Colonel Heneage Finch. They were betrothed on May 15th, 1684. It was a happy marriage, almost of equals, and despite the difficult political situations they would find themselves in, both with succeeding monarchs and their own Catholic faith in opposition to the increasingly dominant Protestant, it would endure. Anne, it seems, was a victim to recurrent bouts of depression and again this is a theme she explores and documents through her poetry. The effects were made worse by the harassment, abuse and dis-favour she and her husband suffered for long periods and their separation from each other because of this. The late 1600’s were not obviously a place where women were treated equally. Anne, with her impassioned belief in social justice did speak out but her position was complicated the politics of the Court, and the literary establishment who surrounded and percolated the Court itself. In April 1690 Heneage Finch was arrested and charged with Jacobitism for attempting to join the exiled James II in France. After his release, with the dismissal of the case, his nephew, Charles Finch, the fourth Earl of Winchelsea, invited the couple to move to the family's Eastwell Park estate in Kent. The Finches took up residence in late 1690 and at last found peace and security. They would live there for the next quarter century. For Anne Finch, life here provided an energy and a supportive home for her literary efforts. Charles Finch was a patron of the arts and, along with Heneage Finch, he encouraged Anne's writing. Her husband's support was also practical. He began collecting a portfolio of 56 of her poems, writing them out by hand and making corrective changes. Significantly he changed Anne's pen name, from "Areta" to "Ardelia". These easier years helped the development of Finch's poetry, and provided her with her most productive writing period. Her work revealed her growing knowledge of poetic conventions, and the themes she addressed included metaphysics, the beauty of nature ("A Nocturnal Reverie"), and the value of friendship ("The Petition for an Absolute Retreat"). On 4 August 1712, their benefactor, Charles Finch, 4th Earl of Winchilsea, died childless. This
Read more from Anne Kingsmill Finch
Aristonenes: or, The Royal Shepherd Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMiscellany Poems on Several Occasions: 'Alas! a woman that attempts the pen, Such an intruder on the rights of men'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Poetry of Anne Kingsmill Finch - Volume 1
Related ebooks
Tales of a Wayside Inn: "Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Poetry of Thomas Parnell - Volume I: “Let those love now who never loved before; Let those who always loved, now love the more.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collected Poetry of William Cowper - Volume II: 'The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoems: 'My heart but bleeds to hear thy musings wild'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Task and Other Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Abolitionist Poems: “Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoetic Sketches: 'Whose fall his Country's tears attend, shower'd on his trophied grave!'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Task & Other Poems: 'No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Of Phyllis Wheatley: “Through thickest gloom look back, immortal shade, On that confusion which thy death has made.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of Alexander Pope - Volume VI: “What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Anne Finch's "A Nocturnal Reverie" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sonnets, Songs, Odes & Verses Of Charlotte Smith: "If conquest does not bind posterity, so neither can compact bind it." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Of Wallace Stevens: "A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman." Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry of Edmund Waller - Volume I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Legend: "Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poems of Phillis Wheatley: With Letters and a Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Victorian Ode - For Jubilee Day, 1897: With a Chapter from Francis Thompson, Essays, 1917 by Benjamin Franklin Fisher Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Short Stories of the British Isles - Volume 1 – Aphra Behn to Mary Shelley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssential Novelists - Charlotte Lennox: the female quixote Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeartsease & Rue: 'The heart forgets its sorrow and ache'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhose Name was Writ in Water - A Dedication to John Keats: A Dedication to John Keats Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Of William Ernest Henley Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnglish Poems: "A wholesome oblivion of one's neighbours is the beginning of wisdom." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare's Other Son?: William Davenant, Playwright, Civil War Gun Runner & Restoration Theatre Manager Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Delia & The Complaint of Rosamund: 'Love is a sickness full of woes, all remedies refusing'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rope: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Not Taken and other Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Poetry of Anne Kingsmill Finch - Volume 1
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Poetry of Anne Kingsmill Finch - Volume 1 - Anne Kingsmill Finch
The Poetry of Anne Kingsmill Finch
Volume 1
Anne Finch (née Kingsmill), Countess of Winchilsea, was born in April 1661, the third child of Sir William Kingsmill of Sydmonton Court and his wife, Anne Haslewood.
At age 5 months, Anne’s father died. His will required that his daughters receive financial support equal to their brother for their education.
Her mother remarried the following year, 1662, to Sir Thomas Ogle. Tragically she was to die in 1664. However shortly before her death she wrote a will giving control of her estate to her second husband. The will was challenged, successfully, in a Court of Chancery by her uncle, William Haslewood. The result was that Anne and Bridget Kingsmill lived with their grandmother, Lady Kingsmill, in Charing Cross, London, while their brother lived with his uncle William Haslewood.
In 1670 Lady Kingsmill filed her own Court of Chancery suit, demanding from Haslewood a share in the educational and support monies for Anne and Bridget. The court split custody and financial support between Haslewood and Lady Kingsmill. With the death of Lady Kingsmill in 1672, Anne and Bridget rejoined their brother to be raised by Haslewood. The sisters received a comprehensive and progressive education, a privilege few other women received, and Anne was immersed in Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, French and Italian languages, history, poetry, and drama.
At Age 21 Anne left to take up a position at St James’s Palace to became one of six Maids of Honour to Mary of Modena (wife of James, Duke of York and later King James II). Among the other Maids of Honour was the poetess Anne Killigrew.
Both Mary and Anne would play significant roles in Anne’s development as a writer and, in Mary’s case, as a role model for the poems.
At the Palace she met and married the courtier and soldier Colonel Heneage Finch. They were betrothed on May 15th, 1684. It was a happy marriage, almost of equals, and despite the difficult political situations they would find themselves in, both with succeeding monarchs and their own Catholic faith in opposition to the increasingly dominant Protestant, it would endure.
Anne, it seems, was a victim to recurrent bouts of depression and again this is a theme she explores and documents through her poetry. The effects were made worse by the harassment, abuse and dis-favour she and her husband suffered for long periods and their separation from each other because of this.
The late 1600’s were not obviously a place where women were treated equally. Anne, with her impassioned belief in social justice did speak out but her position was complicated the politics of the Court, and the literary establishment who surrounded and percolated the Court itself.
In April 1690 Heneage Finch was arrested and charged with Jacobitism for attempting to join the exiled James II in France. After his release, with the dismissal of the case, his nephew, Charles Finch, the fourth Earl of Winchelsea, invited the couple to move to the family's Eastwell Park estate in Kent. The Finches took up residence in late 1690 and at last found peace and security. They would live there for the next quarter century.
For Anne Finch, life here provided an energy and a supportive home for her literary efforts. Charles Finch was a patron of the arts and, along with Heneage Finch, he encouraged Anne's writing. Her husband's support was also practical. He began collecting a portfolio of 56 of her poems, writing them out by hand and making corrective changes. Significantly he changed Anne's pen name, from Areta
to Ardelia
.
These easier years helped the development of Finch's poetry, and provided her with her most productive writing period. Her work revealed her growing knowledge of poetic conventions, and the themes she addressed included metaphysics, the beauty of nature (A Nocturnal Reverie
), and the value of friendship (The Petition for an Absolute Retreat
).
On 4 August 1712, their benefactor, Charles Finch, 4th Earl of Winchilsea, died childless. This made Anne's husband, his uncle, the 5th Earl of Winchilsea, and Anne, the Countess of Winchilsea.
Whilst this was unexpected it brought with it both benefits (titles and assets) and negatives (the assumption of Charles Finch's financial and legal burdens. These were eventually settled in the Finches' favour in 1720, but not before the endurance of seven years of emotional strain)
Anne was not only a poet but a skilled writer of fables and plays. Some of her works were published during her lifetime but most posthumously. With their great range, their wit, their exploration of various poetic forms they have survived to give her an enduring and well won literary legacy.
Anne Kingsmill-Finch died in Westminster on August 5th, 1720. She was buried at her home at Eastwell, Kent.
Index of Poems
The Introduction
Consolation
A Nocturnal Reverie
An Apology For My Fearfull Temper
To Death
For The Better
The Atheist and The Acorn
A Tale Of The Miser And His Poet
A Supplication To The Joys Of Heaven
The Cautious Lovers
Enquiry After Peace
The Dog And His Master
To The Nightingale
The Bird And The Arras
The Young Rat And His Dam, The Cock And The Cat
A Man And His Horse
The Philosopher, The Young Man And His Statue
The Tree
Adam Pos’d
Glass
Alcidor
Cupid And Folly
Hope
The Marriage of Edward Herbert Esquire, and Mrs Elizabeth Herbert
A Pastoral Dialogue Between Two Shepherdesses
An Epistle from Alexander to Hephaestion In His Sickness
Democritus And His Neighbors
An Epistle From A Gentleman To Madam Deshouliers
An Invocation To The Southern Winds
The Petition For An Absolute Retreat
A Letter To The Same Person
All Is Vanity
The Phoenix
Trail All Your Pikes
On The Hurricane
Fragment At Tunbridge Wells
A Song
The Lyon And The Gnat
The Appology
The Miller, His Son And Their Ass
A Poem For The Birth-Day Of The Right Honble The Lady Catharine Tufton
The Executor
The Lord And The Bramble
A Description Of One Of The Pieces Of Tapistry At Long-Leat
La Passion Vaincue
A Letter To Dafnis April 2nd 1685
Ardelia to Melancholy
An Invitation To Dafnis
The Owl Describing Her Young Ones
Reformation
Contemplation
The Battle Between The Rats And The Weazles
Fragment
The Introduction
Did I, my lines intend for publick view,
How many censures, wou'd their faults persue,
Some wou'd, because such words they do affect,
Cry they're insipid, empty, uncorrect.
And many, have attain'd, dull and untaught
The name of Witt, only by finding fault.
True judges, might condemn their want of witt,
And all might say, they're by a Woman writt.
Alas! a woman that attempts the pen,
Such an intruder on the rights of men,
Such a presumptuous Creature, is esteem'd,
The fault, can by no vertue be