"PHILO-PHILIPPA": TO THE EXCELLENT ORINDA: A LAUDATORY POEM DEDICATED TO KATHERINE PHILIPS BY ANOTHER WOMAN, IN THE 17TH CENTURY

Abstract

Katherine Philips, an outstanding English female poet of 17th century, has the great merit of being praised by Dryden and celebrated by Cowley and Jeremiah Taylor, as well as of having introduced a tradition of moral writing in English female literature, vindicated by other relevant female authors after her death.

With no pretence for seeking neither praise nor intelectual privilege during her short life time, she was, however, praised by relevant writers and persons like the Earl of Orrery, the Earl of Roscomon, Abraham Cowley, James Tyrrell and Thomas Flatman. Beside all such words of praise, Philips was devoted, as a recognition for her work as a writer and translator, an anonymous poem, written, as it appears, by an Irish female poet, “Philo-Philippa”: to the Excellent Orinda.

Based on such antecedents, the present paper tackles three main points: a) the female author herself, b) a brief outline of ‘praise literature’, c) the translation of the above cited poem.