Katherine Philips. Obra poética

Katherine Philips: Poetical Works is a bilingual edition of the complete works of ‘The Matchless Orinda’. This edition opens with a 20-page study –by way of introduction– of the author, her background and her poetry. Next, the volume presents 113 poems in bilingual English-Spanish format, with nearly a hundred clarifying notes over 550 pages. Katherine Philips was the first woman to make a significant contribution to the poetical heritage of Britain, despite dying very young. Her work explores a variety of themes, in which friendship – usually between women – predominates, and is expressed through original affective nuances. Friendships reflect platonist ideals and an elevated conception of human relations, whether between members of the same sex or not. All this is expressed with grand and virtuous sentiments, through a diction that is natural, fluid and harmonious, earning the admiration of such important poets as Cowley, Vaughan, Dryden and Keats, demonstrating her renown even in the Romantic period. Such admiration is fully justified, since in all of world literature it is hard to find more beautifully expressed and deeply felt sentiments as those of Katherine Philips.