Anne Killigrew

Infobox Writer
name = Anne Killigrew
birthdate = 1660
birthplace = St Martin's Lane, London, England
deathdate = death date and age|1685|6|16|1660|0|0
deathplace = London, England
occupation = Poetess
nationality = British

Anne Killigrew (1660—1685) was an English poet. Born in London, Killigrew is perhaps best known as the subject of a famous elegy by the poet John Dryden entitled "To The Pious Memory of the Accomplised Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew" (1686). She was however a skillful poet in her own right, and her "Poems" were published posthumously in 1686. Dryden compared her poetic abilities to the famous Greek poet of antiquity, Sappho. She died at age 25 of smallpox.

Anne Killigrew is an often overlooked poet and painter who died young and has become immortalized in John Dryden’s Ode to her. Although she only produced one short book composed of 33 poems, three of which are of disputed authorship, she remains a prominent female writer for seventeenth-century literature.

Early Life and Inspiration

Anne Killigrew was born in 1660 before the Restoration at St. Martin’s Lane in London England. Not much is known about her mother Judith Killigrew, but her father Dr. Henry Killigrew has published several sermons and poems as well as a play called The Conspiracy. Her two paternal uncles were also published playwrights. Sir William Killigrew (1606-1695) published two collections of plays and Thomas Killigrew (1612-1683) not only wrote plays but built the theater now known as Drury Lane. Her father and her uncles were close connections with the Stuart Court, serving Charles I, Charles II, and his Queen, Catherine of Braganza. Anne was made a personal attendant, before her untimely death, to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York.

Little is recorded about Anne’s education, but it is common fact she kept up with her social class, and she had received instruction in both poetry and painting in which she excelled. Her theatrical background added to her used of shifting voices in her poetry. In John Dryden’s Ode to Anne he points out that “Art she had none, yet wanted none. For Nature did that want supply” (Stanza V). Killigrew most likely got her education through studying the Bible, Greek mythology, and philosophy. Mythology was often expressed throughout her paintings and poetry.

Inspiration for Killigrew’s poetry came from her knowledge of Greek myths and Biblical proverbs as well as some very influential female poets who lived during the Restoration period. Katherine Philips and Anne Finch (also a maid to Mary of Modena at the same time as Killigrew) were very instrumental poets involved with Killigrew’s writing. She surrounded Killigrew with a poetic feminist inspiration on a daily basis in Court. Mary of Modena encouraged the French tradition of precieuses (patrician women intellectuals) which pressed women’s participation in theater, literature, and music. Killigrew was encompassed by strong intelligent women who encouraged her writing career as much as their own.

With this motivation came a short book of only thirty-three poems published soon after her death by her father. It was not abnormal, especially for women, to never see their work published until after they died. Since Killigrew died at about 24 or 25 she was only able to produce a small collection of poetry. In fact, the last three poems were only found among her papers and are still being debated about whether or not they were actually written by her. Inside the book is also a self painted portrait of Anne and the Ode by family friend and poet John Dryden.

The Poet and the Painter

Anne Killigrew excelled in multiple media. It is said that she has painted a total of 15 paintings; only four are known to exist today. They are all based on biblical and mythological imagery. It is unknown whether she based the poems on of the paintings, or whether she had painted the paintings to compliment her poetry. Both share an emphasis on nature and suggest female rebellion on a male-dominated society.

All of her poetry has beautiful and potent imagery, but she has often been criticized for having well worn and conventional topics such as death, love, and the human condition. Alexander Pope, prominent critic as well as poet prominent of the time, labeled her work “crude” and “unsophisticated.” So, the question has frequently been raised; is Killigrew so deserving of such an immortalizing Ode by Dryden? Had he even read her poetry to properly determine? Some say Dryden defended all poets as teachers of moral truths, and therefore Killigrew, despite her lack of experience, deserved his praise. However, evidence shows that she might not have been ready to see published some of her work, such as the unfinished poem “Alexandreis,” about Alexander the Great. At the end of the poem, she expresses the feeling that the task was to great for her to take on and she will try to finish it at another time. Then, there is the question of the last three poems that were found among her papers. They seem to be in her handwriting, which is why Killigrew’s father added them to her book. The poems are about the despair the author has for another woman, and could possibly be autobiographical if they are in fact by Killigrew. Some of her other poems are about failed friendships, possibly with Katherine Philips or Anne Finch, so this assumption may have some validity.

An Early Death

Killigrew died of smallpox on June 16, 1685, when she was only 25 years old. She is buried at Chancel of St. John the Baptist’s chapel in Savoy where a monument was built in her honor, but has since been destroyed by a fire. It is unfortunate that she is actually more famous because of John Dryden’s Ode to her death than she is because of her life or her own work. Many critics believe she doesn’t deserve such praise, but she had several accomplishments at an early age.

Works

# Alexandreis
# To the Queen
# A Pastoral Dialogue
# On Death
# Upon Being Contented With A Little
# On Billinda
# On an Atheist
# On Galla
# A Farewell to Worldly Joys
# The Complaint of a Lover
# Love, the Soul of Poetry
# To my Lady Berkeley
# St. John the Baptist
# Herodias
# Nimphs of Diana’s
# An Invective against Gold
# The Miseries of Man
# Verses
# Queen Katherine
# My Lord Colrane
# The Discontent
# A Pastoral Dialogue
# A Pastoral Dialogue
# On my Aunt Mrs. A. K.
# On a Young Lady
# On the Duchess of Grafton
# Penelope to Ulysses
# An Epitaph on Herself
# An Ode
# Young Gallant
# Cloris Charmes
# Upon a Little Lady
# Motions of Eudora

References

# Ezell, Margaret J.M. "The Patriarch’s Wife." Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987. pp. 70, 124.
# Doody, Margaret Anne. "The Daring Muse: Augustan Poetry Reconsidered." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. 254-255.
# Hurley, Ann. “Anne Killigrew.” "Dictionary of Literary Biography," Volume 131: Seventeenth Century British Nondramatic Poets, Third Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by M. Thomas Hester, North Carolina State University. The Gale Group, 1993. pp. 112-119.
# Killigrew, Anne. POEMS. Gainsville: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1976.
# Messenger, Ann. "His & Hers: Essays in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Liturature." Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986. pp. 14-40.
# Shuttleton, David E. “Anne Killigrew (1660-85):’…let ‘em Rage, and ‘gainst a Maide Conspire’.” "Women and Poetry, 1660-1750." New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. pp. 29-39
# Velez-Nunez, Rafael. "Broken emblems: Anne Killigrew’s Pictorial Poetry.” Re-shaping the Genres Restoration Women Writers." Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. pp. 49-66.