The Apology
’Tis true, I write; and tell me by what rule
I am alone forbid to play the fool,
To follow through the groves a wandering muse
And feigned ideas for my pleasures choose?
Why should it in my pen be held a fault,
Whilst Myra paints her face, to paint a thought?
Whilst Lamia to the manly bumper flies,
And borrowed spirits sparkle in her eyes,
Why should it be in me a thing so vain
To heat with poetry my colder brain?
But I write ill, and therefore should forbear.
Does Flavia cease now at her fortieth year
In every place to let that face be seen
Which all the town rejected at fifteen?
Each woman has her weakness; mine indeed
Is still to write, though hopeless to succeed.
Nor to the men is this so easy found;
Ev’n in most works with which the wits abound
(So weak are all since our first breach with Heaven)
There’s less to be applauded than forgiven.
This week marks a return visit to Anne Finch, the Countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720), whose A Nocturnal Reverie was featured here some years back. Finch was a versatile poet whose talents embraced a variety of forms and genres, including satire. In The Apology, she tackles in a spritely manner what was essential material for a female poet of her period: a defence of her daring to practise the male profession of poetry.
The poem, solidly crafted in heroic couplets, begins with the self-mocking admission “’Tis true, I write”, and goes on to argue her claim to be a poet – a fantasy figure seen “to play the fool” and idly pursue the muse in an idyllic pastoral setting. This ironical portrayal is made interesting by the concept of “feigned ideas”. The phrase denies the myth: poets, including women, are capable of imagination and thought, and take pleasure in those challenges. Finch claims the art and its seriousness, while insisting on it as one of her “pleasures” – “pleasures” being a concession to the diminished view of women’s capacities.
A duo of female characters is called on to help press home Finch’s point: Myra, who “paints her face” instead of “a thought”, and Lamia, who seems to take her inspiration from a “manly bumper” of strong spirits. Myra is the rejecting lover in Fulke Greville’s Caelica 22; Lamia may have been a Libyan queen.
It would be interesting to know if these brightly, briefly evoked figures disguise living women in the countess’s friendship circle.
Unlike Myra and Lamia, Flavia, in the poem’s second stanza, has been identified as Finch’s close friend Catherine Fleming. After the self-deprecating first line, Flavia is summoned to aid Finch in her argument for continuing to write despite her lack of success. The subversive joke about a woman, confidently visible at the age of 40 in spite of her earlier youthful dismissal by “all the town”, would no doubt be one that the two close friends enjoyed sharing.
While there was a convention for female writers of the period to express their feelings of humility and audacity in attempting verse, Finch’s references in The Apology to a failed career and poor skill can’t be taken entirely seriously. At the same time, they can’t entirely be dismissed. She was not without her supporters, and benefited from the encouragement of her husband, Heneage Finch. Her Pindaric ode The Spleen was published in Gildon’s Miscellany in 1701, and in a collection of her poetry, which also included a tragic drama, that appeared in 1713. But her work deserved far more visibility than it achieved during her lifetime, and its writer must have been stung at times by the reception from the male literary establishment.
While The Apology ends with a defiant thrust against masculine achievement, Finch demonstrates a sense of balance. Her final quatrain declares that, because “our first breach with Heaven” (the fall) brought imperfection to the human species, the male wits also produce work in which “there’s less to be applauded than forgiven”. By limiting her criticism to the consciously self-admiring young writers-about-town, the wits, she may not be making too harsh a judgment.
The Apology appears to be an early poem, belonging to the Folger Manuscript of 1702. I have based the text on a modernised version of the poem, except for a small change to the eighth line of the second stanza, where, for the sake of the rhythm, I restored the spelling of “even” to “e’vn”. The original may be read in the collection of Finch’s work here.
