Anne Finch was a Countess of Winchilsea, so she grew up around rich writers. It didn’t help because at the time women weren’t accepted as writers. Her audience were probably people with religious education background, other aristocrats, and women. She wrote poems based on stories of the Bible.
Matthew Prior was a diplomat, but a
man for the public. He didn’t belong to
aristocracy and that made him more available as a writer. He was friends with Jonathan Swift. He found himself in trouble by the law with
his job as Secretary to the Embassy. He
was a successful writer and made a lot of money, because he appealed to the general
public. His writing was simple to read,
while being brilliant. His poems are
self-explanatory, and he wrote as a lyricist while writing satire and
epigraphs.
Jonathan Swift was clergyman for the
Anglican Church and was against anything that threatened his faith. He had Meniere’s disease in his adult
life. He was the master of Prose. He believed in “Proper words in proper
places.” He reminds me of Wilmot in his
satire. Although he was a man of faith,
he was controversial. He even wrote a
piece called “Argument against the Abolishing of Christianity in England.” His audience were probably people who were
anti-Catholic and believed in separation of church and state.
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