The Feminead
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The Feminead
John Duncombe (1729-1786) published his "canon-forming" celebration of British women writers as ''The Feminiad'' in 1754, though the title was revised as ''The Feminead'' in the second, 1757 edition. The argument The piece is an essay in verse, a form popular in the eighteenth century, consisting of 380 lines of heroic couplets. Duncombe argues that women "shine, / In mind and person equally divine" and urges his readers to resist the "undisputed reign" of "Prejudice" and instead "sing the glories of a sister-choir." He appeals to his readers' sense of nationalism by contrasting "free-born" "British nymphs" to a stereotypical image of women in a "Seraglio," and situates his subjects in a cultural lineage stemming from classical Greece and Rome. Duncombe takes care to clarify that his support of women artists only extends to those who continue to fulfill their assigned feminine roles and suggests that the pursuit of art and culture might keep women away from more frivolous pursuit ...
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John Duncombe (writer)
John Duncombe (29 September 1729 – 19 January 1786) was an English clergyman and writer. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow. He contributed to the ''Gentleman's Magazine'' under the pseudonym Crito, was a well-known poet, and wrote in 1754 a celebration of British women poets, '' The Feminead''. He was married to the poet Susanna Duncombe (née Highmore). Life Duncombe was born in London on 29 September 1729, the only child of the author and playwright William Duncombe and his wife Elizabeth Hughes. He was educated at two schools in Essex, before entering, on 1 July 1745, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1748 and M.A. in 1752. He was later elected a fellow of his college, and in 1753 was ordained at Kew Chapel by John Thomas, the bishop of Peterborough. On the recommendation of Archbishop Thomas Herring, he was appointed to the curacy of Sundridge in Kent. Duncombe subsequently became assistant-preacher ...
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Hester Chapone
Hester Chapone ''née'' Mulso (27 October 1727, Twywell, Northamptonshire – 25 December 1801, Hadwell, Middlesex), was an English writer of conduct books for women. She became associated with the London Bluestockings. Life Hester, the daughter of Thomas Mulso (1695–1763), a gentleman farmer, and his wife (died 1747/1748), a daughter of Colonel Thomas, wrote a romance at the age of nine entitled "The Loves of Amoret and Melissa", which earned her mother's disapproval. She was educated more thoroughly than most girls in that period, learning French, Italian and Latin, and began writing regularly and corresponding with other writers at the age of 18. Her earliest published works were four brief pieces for Samuel Johnson's journal ''The Rambler'' in 1750. She was married in 1760 to the solicitor John Chapone (c. 1728–1761), the son of an earlier moral writer, Sarah Chapone (1699–1764), but she was soon widowed. Hester Chapone became associated with the learned ladies or B ...
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Frances Seymour, Duchess Of Somerset
Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (''née'' Devereux; 30 September 1599 – 24 April 1674) was an English noblewoman who lived during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I and Charles II. Her father was Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Elizabeth I's favourite who was executed for treason in 1601. She was the second wife of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, and the mother of his seven children. Early life Lady Frances Devereux was born on 30 September 1599 at Walsingham House, Seething Lane, London. She was the youngest child of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and his wife, Frances Walsingham. Her paternal grandparents were Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and Lettice Knollys, and her maternal grandparents were Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's trusted spymaster, and Ursula St. Barbe. At the time of Frances's birth, her father, who was a former favourite of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was under arrest for treasonous behaviour i ...
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Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Elizabeth Singer Rowe (née Singer, 1674–1737) was an English poet, essayist and fiction writer called "the ornament of her sex and age" and the "Heavenly Singer". She was among 18th-century England's most widely read authors. She wrote mainly religious poetry, but her best-known work, ''Friendship in Death'' (1728), is a series of imaginary letters from the dead to the living. Despite a posthumous reputation as a pious, bereaved recluse, Rowe corresponded widely and was involved in local concerns at Frome in her native Somerset. She remained popular into the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic and in translation. Though little read today, scholars have called her stylistically and thematically radical for her time. Biography Born on 11 September 1674 at Ilchester, Somerset, she was the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Portnell and Walter Singer, a dissenting minister.Pritchard, John. ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.''Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Her parents met wh ...
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Elizabeth Pennington
Elizabeth Pennington (1732–1759) was an English poet. Born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, early on she formed an enduring friendship with Martha Ferrar, a fellow poet who became the chief beneficiary of her will. Pennington also maintained friendships with writers Frances Sheridan and Samuel Richardson, and was praised by John Duncombe in his poetic roll call of women writers, '' The Feminiad'' (1754). The poems Duncombe was familiar with must have circulated in manuscript. Her three poems that survive were posthumously published: 'Ode to a Thrush', 'Ode to Morning' and 'The Copper Farthing'. All three became anthology pieces, and were published in collections such as '' Specimens of British Poetesses'' (1798) and '' Poems of Eminent Ladies'' (1780). Her poetry makes effective use of the burlesque mode, and shows the influence of John Philips's ''The Splendid Shilling''. Her entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography' ...
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Martha Peckard
Martha Peckard (''née'' Ferrar; 1729 – 14 January 1805) was a British poet. She is best known for her works "Ode to Spring" (1758) and "Ode to Cynthia" (1758). Life Martha Ferrar was born in 1729. She was the eldest daughter of Huntingdon attorney Edward Ferrar, a descendant of the Ferrar family of Little Gidding. On 13 June 1755 she married the Reverend Peter Peckard. In 1760, her husband was appointed rector of Fletton, Huntingdonshire and she lived in the rectory there until her death. Martha Peckard is best known for her works "Ode to Spring" and "Ode to Cynthia", both written in 1758. “Ode to Cynthia” appears in Dodsley’s collection, Richardson’s Correspondence, and Egerton Brydges's ''Censura Literaria''. “Ode to Spring”, also in Dodsley, was called by Thomas Edwards “a charming piece” which must do her honour with all judges. John Duncombe terms her odes “elegant” in ''The Feminead''. With her husband, she also composed an elegy for a tombston ...
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Judith Madan
Judith Madan (; 26 August 1702 – 7 December 1781) was an English poet. She was the granddaughter of the diarist, Sarah, Lady Cowper (1644–1720) and aunt of the poet William Cowper. She was a correspondent, admirer and protégé of Alexander Pope prior to her marriage, and she composed an admired early-gothic work, ''Abelard to Eloisa'', as a response to Pope's ''Eloisa to Abelard''. Life and career She was the only daughter of Spencer Cowper, lawyer, judge (Justice of the Common Pleas), and member of Parliament, and his wife Pennington (; died 1727), and is thought to have been born at the family seat, Hertingfordbury Park, Hertfordshire, England. She began writing poetry as a teenager. While still Judith Cowper she met Alexander Pope sometime after the 1717 publication of his ''Eloisa to Abelard''. She wrote ''Abelard to Eloisa'', a prominent example of the many literary responses to Pope's work, before she was 20. It was the first English adaptation of the story to fe ...
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Mary Leapor
Mary Leapor (1722–1746) was an English poet, born in Marston St. Lawrence, Northamptonshire, the only child of Anne Sharman (died 1741) and Philip Leapor (1693–1771), a gardener. She, out of the many labouring-class writers of the period, was noticeably well received. Biography Partly self-educated, she probably received a rudimentary education at either a local dame school, or at the local free school in Brackley on the south side of the Chapel. According to her father she began writing "tolerably" at the age of 10. Her father recollected, "She would often be scribbling, and sometimes in Rhyme," but that her mother ended up discouraging the writing, requesting she find some "more profitable employment". She was fortunate enough to attain a position as kitchen maid with Susanna Jennens ("Parthenissa" in Leapor's poetry), who apparently encouraged her writing and allowed her the use of her library. Jennens wrote poetry herself and had connections to both Mary Astell and Mary ...
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Anne Ingram, Viscountess Irvine
Anne, Viscountess Irvine ( – 2 December 1764), was a British court official. She was a poet and close friend of Horace Walpole. Early life Anne was born and was raised in Yorkshire. Her father was Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle and her mother was Anne Capel. Her maternal grandparents were Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex and Lady Elizabeth Percy.Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. "Anne Ingram, Viscountess Irwin." ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature''. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012. 2780-83. Print.Ingram ée Howard; other married name Douglas Anne, Viscountess Irwin rvine(c.1696–1764), poet, by Richard Quaintance By 1712, her parents were irretreviably separated, and Anne seems to have remained close to her father; some of her letters to him survive. She wrote a poem that was a tribute to her father, "Castle Howard" in 1732. "An Epistle to Mr. Pope" One of Ingram's most renowned poems is "An Epistle to Mr. Pope, Occasioned by his Characters of Women" that sh ...
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Anne Kingsmill Finch
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (''née'' Kingsmill; April 16615 August 1720), was an English poet and courtier. Finch's works often express a desire for respect as a female poet, lamenting her difficult position as a woman in the literary establishment and the court, while writing of "political ideology, religious orientation, and aesthetic sensibility". Her works also allude to other female authors of the time, such as Aphra Behn and Katherine Phillips. Through her commentary on the mental and spiritual equality of the genders and the importance of women fulfilling their potential as a moral duty to themselves and to society, she is regarded as one of the integral female poets of the Restoration Era. Finch died in Westminster in 1720 and was buried at her home at Eastwell, Kent. Biography Early years Finch was born Anne Kingsmill in April 1661 in Sydmonton, Hampshire, in southern England. Her parents were Sir William Kingsmill and Anne Haslewood, both from old and po ...
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Susanna Duncombe
Susanna Duncombe (''née'' Highmore; 5 December 1725 – 28 October 1812) was an English poet and artist. Life She was the only daughter of Joseph Highmore, the painter who illustrated Samuel Richardson's ''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded'', was born in 1725, probably in London, either in the city or Lincoln's Inn Fields. Her mother, Susanna Highmore, was also a poet. Much care went into the daughter's education and she came to be proficient in Latin, Spanish, French and Italian. She was one of a party to whom Richardson read his ''Sir Charles Grandison''; and she made a sketch of the scene, which forms the frontispiece to volume ii of Mrs Barbauld's ''Correspondence of Samuel Richardson''. She contributed the story of ''Fidelio and Honoria'' to ''The Adventurer''; was eulogised by John Duncombe as Eugenia in his '' Feminead'', 1754; and, after a protracted courtship, they were married on 20 April 1763, and went to his living in Kent, taking her father with them. Later resident in ...
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Catharine Trotter Cockburn
Catharine Trotter Cockburn (16 August 1679 – 11 May 1749) was an English novelist, dramatist, and philosopher. She wrote on moral philosophy, theological tracts, and had a voluminous correspondence. Trotter's work addresses a range of issues including necessity, the infinitude of space, and the substance, but she focuses on moral issues. She thought that moral principles are not innate, but discoverable by each individual through the use of the faculty of reason endowed by God. In 1702, she published her first major philosophical work, ''A Defence of Mr. Lock's ic.An Essay Concerning Human Understanding''. John Locke was so pleased with this defence that he made gifts of money and books to his young apologist acting through Elizabeth Burnet who had first made Locke aware of Trotter's "Defence". Her work attracted the attention of William Warburton, who prefaced her last philosophical work. She also had a request from the biographer Thomas Birch to aid him in compiling a co ...
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