ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the popularity of Della Cruscan-inspired verse during the period presented a number of problems for women writers in particular, who often found it difficult to negotiate the demands of sensibility, sincerity, femininity and poetic production. It explores that Della Cruscan poetics is contingent on the assumption of particular roles, Merry becomes England's 'genuine Bard', Piozzi become a 'nymph' and Parsons is imagined as a naïve 'youth'. The chapter discusses the political elements of the Florence Miscellany. The viciousness of the response to the Della Cruscans highlights the fact that there was antagonism on both sides of the political fence towards any literary display of sensibility that was perceived to be insincere or artificial performed rather than lived or experienced. Although Merry is most commonly credited with the phenomenon of Della Cruscan verse, it is women such as Cowley and Robinson who embroidered on this already ornate mode and turned it into a recognizable school of poetry.
