Elizabeth Tollet (March 11, 1694 – February 1, 1754) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

poet. Her surviving works are varied; she produced translations of classical themes, religious and philosophical poetry and poems arguing for women's involvement in education and intellectual pursuits such as

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancient wo ...

. Unusually, for a woman of her time, her poetry also includes Newtonian imagery and ideas. Some of her poetry imitates the Latin verse of Horace,

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, and

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

. In some of her poems, Tollet paraphrases the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

. She was the daughter of George Tollet who, observing her intelligence, gave her a thorough education in languages, history, poetry and mathematics. Tollet was fluent in Latin, Italian, and French and she achieved a proficiency in Latin that was unconventional for women of her time. The Tollets' social circle included

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

, who also encouraged her to pursue her education. Tollet grew up in the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

where her father lived as a commissioner of the British Navy. She refers to the

Tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifi ...

in several of her poems and expresses her confinement and frustration with it. Tollet remained unmarried her whole life. Her mother most likely died and Tollet, being the eldest daughter, would've been expected to stay home and care for her siblings. In 1724 she published ''Poems on Several Occasions'', which included her ''Hypatia'', now seen as a feminist protest poem. On Newton's death in 1727 Tollet produced an elegy, ''On the Death of Sir Isaac Newton''. She died in 1754 in the village of Westham,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

(now known as West Ham) and is buried at All Saints church there.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tollet, Elizabeth English women poets 1694 births 1754 deaths 18th-century women writers 18th-century English women 18th-century English people