Universal Verse: The Cosmological Poetics of Anne Southwell

Abstract:

This article explores Anne Southwell’s understanding of the human and specifically female responsibility in making knowledge and contact with the divine, acts that she figures through cosmic movement and, crucially, poetic forms. For Southwell, moving through—and discovering one’s place in—space is part and parcel of poetic creation in its broadest sense: writing divinely informed verse, realising one’s self-potential, and understanding God’s work. The article considers Southwell’s approach to writing physical and astronomical encounters via a series of recurring images: the wax ball or tablet, a pliant material ready to take impressions from above; and acts of flight and celestial revolution. Between them, Southwell’s methods for astronomical exploration and poetic gain reveal the capability of poetry and its expansive opportunities for the female writer.