Themes
As a poet, Finch attained a modest amount of notoriety during her lifetime. In extension to her lyric poetry, odes, love poetry and prose poetry work, Finch's writing was considered to have fallen into the Augustan period (approximately 1660–1760). This is largely due to her work reflecting upon nature and finding both an emotional and religious relationship to it in her verse, consequentially commenting on the change in philosophical and political policy of the time. Later, literary critics recognized the diversity of her poetic output as well as its personal and intimate style. This style would earn greater attention after her death.
The Introduction
In her works, Finch drew upon her own observations and experiences, demonstrating an insightful awareness of the social mores and political climate of her era. But she also artfully recorded her private thoughts, which could be joyful or despairing, playful or despondent. The poems also revealed her highly developed spiritual side.
Did I, my lines intend for public view, How many censures, would their faults pursue, Some would, because such words they do affect, Cry they’re insipid, empty, and uncorrect. And many have attained, dull and untaught, The name of wit only by finding fault. True judges might condemn their want of wit,
— Finch, The Introduction[12]
With these lines, written in the poem The Introduction by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, readers are welcomed into a vibrant, emotional, and opinionated style. They are unapologetically let in on the distinctly female voice that is to come. Melancholy, full of wit, and socially conscious, Anne Finch wrote verse and dramatic literature with a talent that has caused her works to not only survive, but to flourish in an impressive poetic legacy throughout the centuries since her death.
The Spleen
Finch experimented with the poetic traditions of her day, often straying from the fold through her use of rhyme, metre and content, which ranged from the simplistic to the metaphysical. Finch also wrote several satiric vignettes modelled after the short tales of French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine. She mocked La Fontaine's fables, offering social criticism through biting sarcasm. Finch's more melancholy fare, however, gained her wider acclaim. Her famous poems in this sullen vein include A Nocturnal Reverie and Ardelia to Melancholy, both depicting severe depression. Finch also skilfully employed the Pindaric ode, exploring complex and irregular structures and rhyme schemes. Her most famous example of this technique is in The Spleen (written in stanzas after Cowley's manner, and first published in Charles Gildon's Miscellany of 1701),[4] a poetic expression of her first-hand experience of depression and its effects – a condition that was popularly associated with the spleen:[13]
What art thou, Spleen, which ev'ry thing dost ape? Thou Proteus to abused mankind, Who never yet thy real cause could find, Or fix thee to remain in one continued shape. Still varying thy perplexing form, Now a Dead Sea thou'lt represent, A calm of stupid discontent, Then, dashing on the rocks wilt rage into a storm. Trembling sometimes thou dost appear, Dissolved into a panic fear;
— Finch, The Spleen
This poem was first published anonymously, though it went on to become one of her most renowned pieces. Virginia Woolf said of Finch, "a thousand pities that [her mind] should have been forced to [such] anger and bitterness" [14]
Despite her occasionally overtly melancholy outlook, as many prominent friends of hers pointed out, Anne Finch was a competent, effective writer and is known today as one of the most versatile and gifted poets of her generation.
One of her poems was set to music by Purcell.[15]
