English Research Seminar Professor Nicolle Jordan, University of Southern Mississippi

This talk addresses a compelling paradox in Anne Finch's country house poetry. Known for her defense of women's education and artistic agency, Finch approaches this genre in a way that seemingly amounts to a celebration of patriarchy. Dissonance thus arises between her proto-feminism and her deference to male supremacy, a disposition informed in turn by her Jacobite affiliation.

Landscape offers a compelling heuristic with which to interpret these discordant aspects of Finch's identity. More specifically, the talk builds upon Garrett Sullivan's historical investigation of landscape, which identifies a centuries-long transformation in the meaning of the term as principles of estate stewardship gradually cede to proto-capitalist principles of absolute landownership.

The talk proposes that Finch's appropriation of country house poetry exemplifies this evolving meaning of landscape and suggests that the paradox in question manifests an uneven transition from quasi-feudal to capitalist modes of landscape.