Have We Had Enough Katherine Philips Yet?
There are some historic figures where I’m almost at the point of saying, “I know there are a lot more publications about this person and their work that I haven’t read yet, but I’m not sure they’ll add value to the Project beyond what I already have.” Which isn’t to say that they might not be “better” in some absolute sense than material I’ve already covered. It’s a conundrum. Katherine Philips is on that list. (Heck—Sappho is on the list.) But I’m not quite yet at the point of moving those articles to the end of the priority list.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #526 Andreadis 2006 Re-Configuring Early Modern Friendship About LHMP Full citation:Andreadis, Harriette. 2006. “Re-Configuring Early Modern Friendship: Katherine Philips and Homoerotic Desire.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 523–42.
Andreadis opens by providing evidence that in the 17th century, people were quite capable of envisioning same-sex marriage as a concept, even if only in counter-factual situations. Popular opinion tended to divide female homoeroticism into two populations: those perceived as deviant and assigned labels like tribade, confricatrix, rubster, or tommy, and those who conformed to social expectations while expressing erotically-charged sentiments but left no trace of related sexual activity. The latter group includes prominent writers such as Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn, and Delariviere Manley. Historians have recently [note: from the point of view of the turn of the millennium] started seeing them as precursors of an emerging sapphic category, based on a reconsideration of how female friendship was treated in their writings.
In the 17th century, women were claiming space in the traditionally-male discourse of friendship, which was infused with the language and motifs of “union” in the sense of marriage. This is particularly apparent in Philips’ writings, where the concept of a marriage-like union is a constant thread in expressing her passionate attachment to female friends. As part of her work to elevate female friendship, Philips reached out to male philosophers for their opinion on the topic. (Male-authored) friendship literature at that point was rather firm on the position that women were constitutionally incapable of true friendship, and Philips’ efforts returned only the weak admission from Jeremy Taylor that a woman might be capable of being a second-class friend to a man, but that true friendship between women was not in the question.
Friendship literature embraced the idea of a union or marriage of two souls as an essential component. From this, Andreadis suggests that Philips’ use of union/marriage imagery to describe her female friendships was a borrowing of discourse from male friendships. At the same time, for both men and women, the use of this imagery raised the specter of crossing the line into a more transgressive category of forbidden erotics. Philips regularly suggests that the expression of female friendships has a “secret” component that is not to be witnessed by “rude spectators.” This, perhaps, protects the exuberant eroticism of her language from misinterpretation (or correct interpretation?).
In addition to the overt use of “union” language, Philips evokes other marriage-related imagery, such as joint burial of the couple. And her (sequential) passionate friendships were acknowledged by her inner circle by techniques such as joining their (pseudonymous) names in a single expression, such as “Lucasia-Orinda.”
Philips’ (male) correspondents on friendship philosophy had difficulty identifying the point at which friendship might slide into forbidden passions, but hinted to her to beware of it.
The article then moves into an extensive and detailed consideration of Philips’ correspondence and interactions with Sir Charles Cotterell whom she is trying to push as a suitor for her intimate friend Anne Owen. As Cotterell was a long-time friend and literary mentor, Andreadis suggests that these maneuverings were intended to set him up as a proxy for Philips herself as a way to create a familial-like bond with her beloved. These efforts eventually failed and resulted in Philips’ conclusion that “the marriage of a friend [is] the funeral of a friendship,” though it isn’t as clear that she would have considered marriage to Cotterell to have the same effect. Marriage had regularly been the disruptor to Philips’ intimate female friendships in a way that marriage rarely had the power to disrupt friendships between men, though she doesn’t seem to have made this connection directly.
When selections of Philips’ correspondence (with men) were published posthumously, they were presented as examples of the validity of male-female friendship and as support for how Philips exemplified appropriate ways for women to establish a social and literary reputation while maintaining a virtuous reputation. But the public nature of her friendships with men—in line with how male-male friendships were expected to be performed—stands in contrast to the more private ways she performed her friendships with women. This was an era when these public friendships functioned as a second layer of social network, analogous to but separate from familial bonds. Philips’ interactions with Cotterell partake of this flavor, but at the same time retains an inequity of power more similar to that of a woman to a paterfamilias, in which she coaxes and persuades rather than acting as an equal partner.
Time period: 17th cPlace: EnglandMisc tags: female comrades/friendsfriendshipromantic friendshipEvent / person: Katherine Philips View comments (0)
