Paper Summary:

By examining and analyzing several of Katherine Philips's poems, the author of this paper shows how Philips' poetry was most notable for its creative construction of gender and female sexuality, but surmises that the vision was secretly expressed inside the conventional language of female friendship.

From the Paper:

"This is a point in Philips' poetry where she moves into the more conventional realm of Platonic love a safe and respectable realm in the 17th century but also a point at which she begins to manipulate her audiences' ideas of what that realm really is. For example, Philips implies that ascending towards Platonic love (i.e., spiritual or ideal love) allows friends or lovers to imagine an alternative reality for themselves, different from the one in which they now find themselves. This realm would give the two women the freedom to live out their "Fate" (l.7). In fact, in Philips' poem "To my Excellent Lucasia," she writes that her connection to Lucasia is "As innocent as our Design, / Immortal as our Soul" (ll.23-4)."

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