"That private shade, wherein my Muse was bred": Katherine Philips and the poetic spaces of Welsh retirement

In contrast to previous studies of Katherine Philips as a poet of female friendship and Royalist loyalty, this article takes as its starting point the fact that Philips wrote most of her poetry while living in Wales. Drawing on recent work in archipelagic British studies and women's literary history, it views Philips in terms of her Welsh location, which allows for a new approach to her poetry of retirement in particular (read alongside her letters) and a fresh perspective on her literary significance in general. While Philips has been recognized as a poet of contradiction and product of an ideologically complex social and political background, the complexities of her geographical location have rarely been explored. Rather than endorse the dominant view of Philips's life in Wales as one of exile and isolation, the article argues that her relation to Wales enabled her as a poet by providing "that private shade" from where she could engage with the world beyond.