Katherine Philips

Katherine Philips (1632–1664) was a Welsh-born poet and translator whose verse circulated widely in manuscript. Her translation of Pierre Corneille’s tragedy Pompey appeared in print in 1663.

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Cavalier poetry: A seventeenth-century English poetic tradition associated with courtly themes, lyric wit, and writers aligned with royalism. Philips wrote within the era’s lyric culture, though her work does not fit neatly into its political label.
Pompey (play): Katherine Philips’s English verse translation of Pierre Corneille’s tragedy La Mort de Pompée. It is her most prominent dramatic translation and brought Corneille’s Roman tragedy to English readers.
Anne Owen: A Welsh gentlewoman and friend of Katherine Philips, represented in Philips’s poetry as Lucasia. Their friendship inspired a substantial group of Philips’s intimate poems.
Restoration literature: English writing produced after the monarchy’s restoration in 1660 and during the reign of Charles II. Philips’s final years and dramatic translation belong to the period’s renewed theatrical and literary culture.
Manuscript culture: The production and circulation of texts by handwriting rather than print. Her poems spread among friends in manuscript before their posthumous publication.
Pierre Corneille: A French dramatist whose tragedies include Le Cid, Horace, and La Mort de Pompée. Philips translated his La Mort de Pompée as Pompey.
Charles Cotterell: An English courtier, translator, and writer who was a friend and literary associate of Katherine Philips. He helped advance Philips’s literary reputation and was involved in the publication of her works.
Women’s writing in early modern England: Literary works written by women in England from the sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Philips’s published and manuscript works became a significant part of this literary history.
Pastoral poetry: A literary mode that represents rural life and shepherds, often to explore love, politics, or artifice. Her friendship poems use pastoral names and settings to stylize social relationships.
Friendship poetry: Poetry that represents friendship as an intimate bond, ethical ideal, or source of emotional support. Many of Philips’s best-known lyrics celebrate bonds with women in her literary circle.