ABSTRACT
An Collins is a unique and fascinating writer, whose work is rightly being extensively investigated and analyzed in this volume. In order to understand fully her position in the history of seventeenth-century English literature, it is important to set her Divine Songs and Meditacions (1653) in the relevant contexts. These include her personal and medical history, the political circumstances through which she lived and to which she alluded, the generic traditions available to her, and her doctrinal allegiances. As part of this process of contextualizing Collins’s work, the present essay situates her poetry in relation to an important literary and devotional tradition: that is, the influence and inspiration of George Herbert’s lyrics.1
