Katherine Philips was born in London, the daughter of a prosperous cloth merchant John Fowler, and and her mother, Katherine (Oxenbridge)and was sent to a boarding school,
At sixteen she married a Welshman, James Philips, a substantial landowner in Wales, and thereafter lived here in my hometown of Aberteifi/ Cardigan and their home here the Priory became a literary centre. It was here that, in the mode of the time, she was accorded the fancy name of Orinda, soon to be expanded into 'the Matchlless Orinda'. Her poems and letters make frequent reference to Cardigan and its surroundings. They lived here for the rest of their lives, with one interlude in Dublin and frequent visits to London for parliamentary sittings, as James Philips was MP in successive parliaments between 1653 and 1662.
Katherine Philips is best known for her poetry on the theme of friendship, but she also gained success as a translator: amongst others, she translated the French play ‘La mort de Pompée’ by Corneille, which was performed in Dublin, and subsequently published in Dublin and London.
James Philips was a prominent Parliamentary supporter who signed Charles I's death-warrant in 1649. Katherine seems to have started to write poetry soon after she got married, and she was
"discovered" by the Welsh metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan,
https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2009/11/henry-vaughan-silurist-hermeticist.html who praised the work of "
The Matchless Orinda" in his Olor Iscanus. Vaughan subsequently published a memorial poem Katharine had written for the poet and playwright William Cartwright (1611-1643). It was at this time that she began to use "
Orinda" as a pen-name, and wrote poetry principally of a personal nature to Mary Aubrey, her "
Rosania". After Mary's marriage Katharine's chief poetic "
correspondent" became Anne Owen, or "
Lucasia."
During the Civil War Katherine harboured royalist sympathies in spite of her puritan upbringing and marriage; she duly celebrated the Restoration in 1660, but could not avoid being caught up in her husband's problems. As a regicide, James Philips was lucky to avoid prosecution, but he lost his position as an MP, and most of the land he had acquired as a gift from Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell was reposessed by the Crown.After her husbands death she lived in Dublin, where she translated Corniell's ' Pompee', her version being played with much success at the Dublin Smock Alley Theatre.
In the end, however, Katherine was lucky; her husband's reputation was saved by Sir Charles Cotterell, Charles II's Master of Ceremonies
Cotterell was interested in the hand of Katherine's friend Anne Owen, and because of the help given to him by the Philipses, Cotterell interceded for James Philips. In the end, Anne did not marry Cotterell, but Katherine and Cotterell remained friends, and it was he who prepared her poems for publication after her premature death from smallpox on 18 January 1664 at the age of 32 – before any authorised version of her poetry was published.
Philips turned out to be one of the very few women whose works were in wide circulation in the mid-17th century. This happily coincides with the time of Pepys’s diary writing, and she is duly mentioned in Samuel’s diary entry for the 10th August 1667: ‘and then abroad to the New Exchange to the bookseller’s there, where I hear of several new books coming out – Mr. Pratts history of the Royal Society and Mrs. Phillips’s poems.’
The bookseller Pepys is referring to is Henry Herringman, the publisher of Katherine Philips’s posthumous book of poetry.Herringman was surely attempting to be the persuasive salesman here and push his own publications ahead of others, though sadly Pepys doesn’t seem to have bought it – there is no copy of this publication in the Pepys Library. in 1664, just after she had returned to England from a visit to Anne in Ireland.
In her lifetime Philips saw only two of her books in print. The first was a translation of Corneille's play La mort de Pompee, which her fellow-dramatist the Earl of Orrery had staged in Dublin, and which was printed shortly afterwards (1663). The second, unauthorized, book was Poems by the Incomparable Mrs. K.P. (1664), which was withdrawn a few days after publication because Katherine objected on the grounds that the text was inadequately printed.
Cotterell's "authorized" edition of the Poems appeared in 1667, with further editions in 1669, 1678, and 1710--a considerable achievment for a dead female poet. Her letters to "Poliarchus" (Cotterell) were published in 1705.
She was also an ardent 'apostle' of friendship between women. Indeed the 'Lucasia' mentioned so lovingly in the following poem 'Wiston Vault' was one of her intimates - Anne Owen, afterwards Viscountess Dungannon. The famous Jeremy Taylor dedicated to her a book which has friendship as its theme.
'
Wiston' is a sea-coast village in Pembrokeshire. The church 'restored' in the 1860s. still exists.
Wiston Vault
Wiston Vault - Katherine Phillips
And why the vault and Tomb? Alike we must
Put of distinction, and put on our dust;
Nor can the staliest fabric help to save
From the corruptions of a commons grave,
Nor for the Resurresction more prepare,
Than if the dust were scattered into air.
What then? Th'ambition's just, say some, that we
May thus perpetuate our memory.
Ah, false, vain task of art! ah, poor weak man
Whose monument does more than merit can!
Who by his friends' best care and love's abused,
And in his very epitaph accused;
For did they not suspect hisname would fall,
There would not need an epitaph at all.
But after death, too, I would be alive,
And shall, if my Lucasia do survive.
I quit these pomps of death, and am content,
Having her heart to be my monument:
Though ne'er stone to me, 'twill stone for me to prove,
By the peculiar miracles of love.
There I'll inscription have which no tomb gives:
Not HERE ORINDA LIES, but HERE SHE LIVES.
Unjust tyrant, lover of the darkness, enemy of life
This is an English Translation of the Arabic poem Ela Toghat Al Alaam which was written by the Tunisian poet Abdul Qasim Alshabi.
