"A woman that attempts the pen" : Anne Finch's Self‐Consciousness as a Woman Poet

Anne Finch (1661-1720) vigorously wrote poems about herself being a woman poet when female writers were regarded with condemnation and reprehension, and when few women identified themselves as serious poets. In doing so, she was able to register contemporary women's conditions and to fashion her own perspectives on poetry. Against the male dominated literary tradition in which women generally appeared only as an after thought, Finch as a female poet tried to subvert, both directly and indirectly, the widespread assumption that it was presumptuous for a woman to write poems. Finch tapped into her own disadvantage as a woman poet and turned the table upon her society. Such a vantage point enabled her to question the male-dominated world and criticize unequal relationships between men and women. Inasmuch as Finch continuously tried to perceive and interpret her vocation as a woman poet and the world around her, she paved way not only for her own creative vocation but also for the ensuing generation of women writers so as to procure their own territory on literary tradition.