A Study Guide for Katherine Philips's "Against Love"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Katherine Philips's "Against Love," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535817707

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Against Love

Katherine Philips

1667

Introduction

Katherine Philips wrote during a time in English history when few women sought to publish their writings. Philips's poetry was privately circulated during her lifetime, and a pirated collection of her poems was printed without her consent. Just prior to her death, Philips was coordinating the first authorized publication of her poems, but the volume did not appear until after her death. Philips's work became known to the fellow writers in her circle of friends, and as a poet she was highly regarded among her contemporaries. Many of her poems focus on the theme of female friendship, while others are more political in nature. In the poem Against Love, Philips condemns the destructive nature of passionate love. After outlining the ways in which love makes slaves of men, she describes the peace and freedom enjoyed by those who do not so foolishly give their hearts away.

Against Love was originally published in 1667, in Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda. It is available in modern anthologies, including A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, published in 1981 and reprinted in 1992.

Author Biography

Although the exact date of Philips's birth is unknown, many scholars believe that she was most likely born on January 1, 1632, to parents James and Katherine Fowler. Her father was a London cloth merchant. She was educated at home and, later, in Mrs. Salmon's Presbyterian School for Girls. In 1642, when the young Katherine was just ten years old, her father died. Four years later, she, her mother, and her brother Joshua moved to Pembrokeshire when her mother married Sir Richard Philips.

In 1648, when she was sixteen, the young Katherine married James Philips, who was a fifty-four-year-old relative of her stepfather. The couple moved to Cardigan