...impediment to intellectual development. The poet Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, put it bluntly: I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits. (Parker 1984, 105) 64 Despite these handicaps, increasing numbers of women published novels in both...

...would be construed as strengths in a man poet. In reference to her own verse Anne Bradstreet wrote, "If what I do prove well, it won't advance, / They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance. "^ Cavendish's single poem in the latest Norton Anthology is burdened with the following footnote:...

...would be construed as strengths in a man poet. In reference to her own verse Anne Bradstreet wrote, "If what I do prove well, it won't advance, / They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance."51 Cavendish's single poem in the latest Norton Anthology is burdened with the following footnote:...

...odium by stepping outside the role prescribed by society for women, in exchanging her needle for a pen: I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits, A Poets pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on female wits.54 Nor should gender...

...speaker takes a more assertive position and castigates those who held that a woman should not be a poet: "I am obnoxious to each carping tongue/ Who says my hand a needle better fits." Moreover, she complains of those who, assuming that women cannot be writers, will "say it's stoln,...

...striving pain. Art can do much, but this maxim's most sure: A weak or wounded brain admits no cure. 5 I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my...do prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance. 6 But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild, Else of our Sex,...

...the poet — who was actually well respected in her own time — mocks her Puritan patriarchy with "A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, / For...do prove well, it won't advance, / They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance" (16). See the excellent Adrianne Rich introduction to a volume of...

...striving pain. Art can do much, but this maxim's most sure: A weak or wounded brain admits no cure. 5 I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my...pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite the}' cast on female wits. If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stol'n, or else...

...and women know it well."16 But at the same time she allows herself a flash of anger and independence: I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits if what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance.17 When...

...Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet announced her exception to this "no writing" rule and the anxiety it caused: "I am obnoxious to each carping tongue / who says my hand a needle better fits.")6 A Token for Mourners is a serious book of advice, meant for a devout audience. At the same...