ABSTRACT
The Preface to the posthumous 1667 edition of Philips's work pinpoints the slippery relationship between the symbolic and material, text and body, that features in much writing by seventeenth-century women. Presented as a private letter from 'Orinda' (Philips's pseudonym) to 'Poliarchus' (Charles Cotterell), it specifically responds to the apparently unauthorized, adulterated appearance of Philips's poetry in 1664, shortly after which she contracted smallpox and died. 1
In her letter the figure of Orinda is concerned to establish the 'innocence' of her textual activity and 'ignorance' of the processes by which her corpus was published (Philips 'The Preface').2 She refers to her indebtedness to Cotterell in aiding its withdrawal from the public domain, asserting that she 'never writ any line in my life with an intention to have it printed,' her compositions being undertaken 'only for my own amusement in a retir'd life' ('The Preface'). She alludes to her work as 'scribble' and 'careless blotted writing' composed upon 'rags of Paper,' conceding that poetic creation is 'far above my reach, and unfit for my Sex' ('The Preface'). The integrity of her feminine virtue is asserted through the fragmentary condition of her corpus. Moreover, publication is associated with bodily disease and mutilation: the 'injury' and 'unworthy usage' resulting from having her 'private ... imaginations rifled and exposed' cost her 'a sharp fit of sickness,' while the anticipation of future publication is envisaged 'with the same reluctancy as I would cut off a Limb to save my Life' ('The Preface'). Literary production is apparently physically corrupting.
