Elizabeth Singer Rowe

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Standard Name: Rowe, Elizabeth Singer
Birth Name: Elizabeth Singer
Married Name: Elizabeth Rowe
Pseudonym: Philomela
Pseudonym: The Pindarick Lady
Pseudonym: The Pindarical Lady
Pseudonym: The Author of Friendship in Death
ESR wrote witty, topical, satirical poetry during the 1690s, followed later in life by letters, essays, fiction (often epistolary), and a wide range of poetic modes, often though not invariably with a moral or religious emphasis. Her reputation as a moral and devotional writer during her lifetime and for some time afterwards stood extremely high. Current critical debate is establishing the element of proto-feminist or amatory fiction (what Paula Backscheider calls experimental, subversive, and transgressive) in her prose against the didactic-devotional element.
Backscheider, Paula R. Elizabeth Singer Rowe and the Development of the English Novel. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Photograph of a line engraving of Elizabeth Singer Rowe by George Vertue, 1725, shown from the waist up, wearing a simple dark dress with a low scooped neckline. Her hair is tied back with a lock appearing over one shoulder. The oval frame (contained within a rectangle) bears her name, "Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe", and is topped with emblems including a sprig of laurel and a crown; a further swag of emblematic objects below includes flowers, sheets of inscribed paper, and the trumpet of Fame.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
It was in this year that Lord Winchilsea told Lady Hertford how pleased his late wife (the poet Anne Finch ) would have been with her achievement. At about the same period Elizabeth Singer Rowe
Textual Production Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Frances Hertford and Elizabeth Singer Rowe had each urged the other to publish her work. After Rowe's death Hertford joined with Isaac Watts in posthumous editing of Rowe for print.
Textual Production Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Frances, Countess of Hertford , composed an elegy on her literary mentor: Verses to the Memory of Mrs. Rowe by a Friend.
Hughes, Helen Sard. The Gentle Hertford, Her Life and Letters. Macmillan.
354 and n10
Family and Intimate relationships Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
The writer Elizabeth Singer Rowe was, says a recent commentator, like an honorary aunt to the young Frances Thynne.
Kennedy, Deborah. Poetic Sisters. Early Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Bucknell University Press.
14
Education Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Frances became well versed in most kinds of books, as well as good at dancing.
Hughes, Helen Sard. The Gentle Hertford, Her Life and Letters. Macmillan.
7
Her books included history, theology, and romances—almost every subject except philosophy. Her father had taught Italian to the poet...
Friends, Associates Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
The young Frances Thynne grew up in a literary ambience. Her early friends included Frances Worsley, later Lady Carteret (who apparently patronised women writers later, when her husband was Viceroy of Ireland). Family friends from...
Friends, Associates Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Lady Hertford wrote that a certain distrust of her own judgement made her slow in the choice of a friend; but when that choice is made, my attachments are too strong to be easily broken...
Occupation Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Among writers who received Lady Hertford's patronage were Elizabeth Singer Rowe , Elizabeth Boyd , Elizabeth Carter , Mary Chandler , Isaac Watts , Laurence Eusden (for whom she set topics of occasional poems), James Thomson
Textual Production Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Frances Thynne, later Hertford, began letter-writing at an early age. She was eleven when her grandfather was glad to find her in an hopeful way of being a good scribe,
Hughes, Helen Sard. The Gentle Hertford, Her Life and Letters. Macmillan.
7
and twelve when her...
Literary responses Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
The writing of verse began in Frances Thynne's life almost as early as the writing of letters: it must have been a poem rather than a letter that evoked from Elizabeth Singer Rowe the response:...
Publishing Frances Seymour, Countess of Hertford
Hertford later included poems of her own composition in her letters to Rowe and to Lord Winchilsea , widower of the poet Anne Finch . She exchanged verse, too, with Frederick, Prince of Wales ...
Education Eliza Fletcher
Grandmother Brudend and a paternal aunt educated Eliza with poetry and stories. The letters of Elizabeth Singer Rowe were important in her reading. It was said, however, that her grandmother over-encouraged her in precocious display...
Friends, Associates Anne Finch
AF enjoyed personal friendships with a number of distinguished men, among them Bishop Thomas Ken . She valued female friendship very highly; women friends figure prominently in her poetry. Lady Catherine Jones , to whom...
Intertextuality and Influence Anne Finch
Although AF is often thought of as a writer of pastoral, on account of the fame of A Noctural Reverie, this mode is fairly rare in her work. She is a very social poet....
Reception Anne Finch
Finch gave a copy of her pindaric Upon the Hurricane to Elizabeth Singer , who responded warmly.
Kennedy, Deborah. Poetic Sisters. Early Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. Bucknell University Press.
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