Epitaph on a Favorite Tame Chicken

Although I did not choose to present the Epitaph on the chicken in class, I did not want to deprive everyone from enjoying the poem. What if any aspects of this poem do you find similar to "The Choice"? Would this poem fall within the classification of an elegy as defined by Backscheider? Any other thoughts on the death of the chicken?

BENEATh this stone a chicken's laid,
Her mistress named her Bess,
Six months she tenderly was nursed,
Yes still she grew the less.

In fairy hill poor Bess was hatched,
If there she had but staid,
She might have had a verdant grave,
And not in dust been laid.

But hapless chick, like this world's fools,
Must wander far from home,
And by a lady's scissars fell,
And here must fix her tomb.

Farewell! my little favourite Bess,
Thy fate why should I mourn?
Since kings and queens the fame must share,
And unto dust return.

Reading for Friday: Kelly, "The Choice"

Here is the poem that Emily will be teaching on Wednesday.

For Credit: Where Does this Poetry Analysis Get Us?

Let me first say that I am deeply impressed by the close-reading skills that all of you have been bringing to class and the sophisticated level of engagement and analysis that has been characterizing our discussions. There are a lot of ways that a tiny class on rather off-beat subject matter can go, and I definitely feel like I'm living a best-case scenario. So thank you all! (And by all means, carry on!)

Let's step back for a minute, now that we're about midway through the student-led discussions, and think more broadly about these poems that we've been scrutinizing. So far we've mourned the death of Marie Antoinette, heard some good marital advice, explored the pleasures of cosy room on a stormy night, and considered the implications of a boy's first pair of pants.

What does it all add up to? Are we looking at a bunch of entertaining and diverse poems that happen to have existed within the same hundred-year span and were written by people with vaginas but otherwise have little to connect them? Or do these various works hang together with the other poems you've read in the course in ways that suggest that "C18 Poetry By Women" is a coherent, stable, and analyzable literary field? That may sound like a leading question, but it's not meant to be (I'm not looking for affirmation that the course title makes sense, but I am looking for an active engagement with the question).

Deadline: oh, fairly open-ended under the circumstances, but I did tally up the blog points thus far and some of you need to step up and start posting responses if you do not want your grade dragged down by this requirement.

Reading for Monday: Yearsley, "Elegy on Marie Antoinette"

Here is the poem that Ryan will be teaching the class on Monday.

Reading for Friday: Bannerman, "To the Nightingale"

Here is the poem that Kristen will be teaching on Friday.

More Mary Masters

Hey People-

I thought you might want to read the poem that I kept mentioning during class. Notice the very long title, it seems to be a common trope with Masters. Enjoy!

(Update--if you had trouble opening that link before, it should be working now.)

Reading for Wednesday: Masters, "On a Lady who...died a maid."

Here is the poem that Liz will be teaching the class on Wednesday.