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Author Biography

Sharon Smith is a Professor of English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at South Dakota State University and an Editor of The Eighteenth-Century: Theory and Interpretation. Her current research focuses largely on eighteenth-century women's poetry.

Abstract

This essay outlines an approach to integrating Anne Finch’s work into an advanced undergraduate and/or graduate course on eighteenth-century satire, focusing particularly on her satirical verse fables. This approach encourages students to question common critical assumptions about women and satire, most particularly that women avoided satire due to its association with aggression and politics—assumptions Finch’s fables are well-suited to challenge. The essay focuses particularly on Finch’s verse fables "Upon an Impropable Undertaking," “The Eagle, the Sow, and the Cat,” and “The Owl Describing Her Young Ones.” In these poems, written in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, Finch employs violent imagery in order to emphasize the threat that political machinations characterized by self-interest, manipulation, and deceit posed to the future of the English nation.

Keywords

Anne Finch, teaching, satire, fable, poetry, politics, violence, Glorious Revolution, women, "Upon an Impropable Undertaking, " "The Eagle, the Sow, and the Cat, " "The Owl Describing Her Young Ones"

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