By Charlotte Becker ’26

Contributor Biography: Charlotte Becker is an international student from Germany who is studying at Washington College for the academic year of 2025/26. Outside of the classroom, she is a staff writer for The Elm, the German TA, and a dancer for Dancescape

Brief Description: This essay explores the necessity of poetry to provide a platform for women to express their romantic friendships to each other without being ostracized by their contemporaries in the patriarchal society of the 17^th century.

The following was written for ENG303: Women Writers to the 1800s

As powerless as poetry may seem in uncertain times, it has been a powerful tool in the fight against the marginalization of minorities. The statement “Poetry is not a Luxury” is not only the title of the essay by Audre Lorde but also her argument that poetry is an indispensable medium used to justify the existence of marginalized groups in society. In her essay from 2007, Lorde focuses on Black women who make use of poetry to raise their voices in this literary safe space. But ever since the 17^th century, poetry has been a necessary genre to provide a platform for women to express their romantic friendships to each other without being ostracized by their contemporaries in the patriarchal society. In the poetry collection Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire by Emma Donoghue, female poets succeed in addressing their affection to their female lovers through the refined use of stylistic devices that are an integral part of poetry. Building on Lorde’s argument, the art of poetry was not a luxury good in the 17^th century but a powerful and essential form for the representation and legitimization of homosexual relations between women at the edge of marginalization. 

In her essay, Lorde argues that the genre of poetry is a necessary tool to provide a space for unexpressed feelings of marginalized groups: “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change” (37). Lorde emphasizes that poetry empowers Black women. The author advocates for the powerfulness of poetry when she claims that poetry is the “revelatory distillation of experience” (37) of women. Without poetry, an essential place of expression and visualization for ostracized groups would disappear. Therefore, poetry enables women to liberally confess their neglected feelings within their community as a method to overcome the fear of prejudice and marginalization. Hence, as per Lorde, women should take advantage of poetry to raise awareness for the existence of their community in the patriarchal society (37). However, this ideal does not only apply to Black women but also to women in the 17^th century who were involved in romantic friendships with their female friends. Aligning with Lorde, poetry itself holds the power to prevent the marginalization of women because of its timeless nature and uniqueness to its possibilities.

Poetry is a powerful medium of communication because of its ability to conceal the publicity of affection in romantic friendships with the help of metaphors. In the poem “To My Excellent Lucasia, On Our Friendship” (Donoghue 3), the poet Katherine Philips applies metaphors as an effective tool to portray her emotional and physical dependence on her romantic friend Lucasia. The speaker claims that she “did not live until” (Philips 1) she met Lucasia, illustrating the significance and completeness of the speaker’s life due to Lucasia’s presence. The use of the metaphor “For as a watch by art is wound” (Philips 9) underscores the vitality and physical functioning that Lucasia’s presence ensures in the speaker’s life. By claiming that “I’ve all the world in thee” (20), the speaker dedicates the meaning of her life to the female friend who sets the speaker’s feelings in motion. Thus, the genre of poetry bears an inherent powerfulness because it depicts deep emotional connection between women in a metaphoric way. A metaphor as a central element of poetry exemplifies the “vital necessity” (Lorde 37) of poetry for the existence of marginalized communities. This concealed manner of emotional expression that deviates from the desired norms helps to embrace and legitimize emotionality in romantic friendships. Consequently, female lovers in the 17^th century needed poetry because their metaphors could conceal romance in their friendships.

Moreover, metaphors and refined language used in poetry provoke a justification and downplaying of romantic relationships by describing them from a heteronormative perspective. For instance, in Jane Barker’s poem “On the Death of my Dear Friend and Play-fellow, Mrs E. D. having Dream’d the night before I heard thereof, that I had lost a Pearl” (Donoghue 9-10), the poet equates their romantic friendship to a “harmless Luxury” (18). By implying that their shared love does not pose any danger to their social environment, the metaphor aims to convince the audience of the moral acceptability of their romantic friendship. Likewise, in the poem “To My Excellent Lucasia…” (Donoghue 3), Philips describes the female lovers’ intention as “innocent” (23) to depict their romantic friendship as guiltless. By describing their romantic friendships as insignificant, poetry enables lesbian women in the 17^th century to justify their existence. With the help of metaphors and sophisticated language choice, female poets compared their romantic relationships to the period’s heteronormative standards, which led to the intentional deprecation of their romantic friendships because society did not view womens’ romantic friendships as equal to a heterosexual relationship. So, poetry is a necessary tool because the genre emphasizes metaphors and individual words and therefore justifies  female romantic friendships compared to heteronormative relationships. 

Furthermore, the display of natural imagery that suggests yonic symbolism is also a very effective tool in poetry in order to allude to the affection that is implied by romantic friendships. Poetry provides a platform for the experiences and thoughts of the female homosexual community at the edge of ostracization. In Killigrew’s poem “On the Soft and Gentle Motions of Eudora” (Donoghue 11), the phrases “growth of the Flowers” (Killigrew 4) and “falling Dew” (5) allude to homosexual desire and affection. The application of natural imagery to imply associations with lust and fertility serves as a “safe-house” (Lorde 38) for the marginalized group of female lovers. Due to the free expression of their feelings, the female poets are enabled to survive mentally because they can use poetry as an emotional outlet. Therefore, natural and yonic imagery aligns with the powerfulness of poetry to provide a space for the emotional expression of their hidden homosexuality. 

Likewise, natural imagery with regard to Greek mythology enables intimate friends to conceal a deeper meaning for the thriving love within their poetry. For example, in Aphra Behn’s poem “To my Lady Morland at Tunbridge” (Donoghue 5-7), the nymph Cloris is mentioned when the speaker comments on their lover’s beautiful appearance: “how much Beauty, Cloris, dwelt in you“ (Behn 14). Since Cloris stands for vitality and fertility because of the association to flora, the lover’s beauty and the speaker’s affection is therefore even more underscored but in an indirect way. In alignment with Lorde, poetic expression empowers women to raise their voice for the confession of their “feelings and the honest exploration of them” (Lorde 37). So, poetry is a vital tool for lesbians in the 17^th century because they can make use of allegorical figures from Greek mythology to confess their attraction to each other. 

Poetry is a necessary tool not only because of its use of metaphors but also because of the refined word choice which legitimizes female romantic friendships. For instance, in the poem “To My Excellent Lucasia…” (Donoghue 3), Philips expresses her hopes for her romantic friendship to be permanent in the future: “Then let our flame still light and shine / (And no bold fear control), / As innocent as our design, / Immortal as our Soul” (Philips 21-24). Philips’ word choice aims at the legitimization of their love. With Philips describing her fear as “bold” (22), the poet emphasizes the “unrecorded emotions and feelings” (Lorde 37) that Lorde considers to be a powerful source to draw strength from. Since poetry requires attentive reading, the depiction of their fear as intruding illustrates how the poet skillfully includes her daily emotional experiences in her romantic friendship. Therefore, the sophisticated use of precise language enables Philips to process the fear of marginalization that she is continuously facing in her daily life. The display of the frightening feeling aligns with Lorde’s perspective that “[t]he farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives” (Lorde 37). Lorde considers poetry an important tool that gives their daily experiences as marginalized a concise form, in which the refined word choice adds to the emotionality of the poem. Poetry thus permits female lovers to express their emotional expectations for their romantic friendships. By the use of poetry “we help give name to the nameless” (Lorde 37), meaning that female lovers in romantic friendships lacked a social lobby for themselves. Hence, their marginalization is overcome by their representation in poetry and their ability to openly confess their experiences and affection to each other in the concealing medium of poetry in the 17^th century. 

However, not only is affection and desire conveyed by poetry between women, but also sadness and setbacks. This allows women at the edge of marginalization in the 17^th century to process traumatic experiences in serious romantic friendships and enables women to mentally survive in their dangerous positions in society. For example, in Aphra Behn’s poem “To My Lady Morland at Tunbridge” (Donoghue 5-7), the lines “’Twas at the Altar, where more Hearts were giv’n? at altar / To you that day, than were address’d to Heav’n” (Behn 21-22) illustrate the speaker’s experience of jealousy and loss when her female lover married a man. By means of the synecdoche of the “Hearts” (6), the speaker achieves distance between herself and her affectionate feelings and succeeds in addressing her emotions to the public. The processing of this traumatic experience in poetry helps to embrace the unfortunate emotional state in a concealed way because of the public representation of their feelings. As per Lorde, poetry “give[s] name to those ideas which are –until the poem– nameless and formless, about to be birthed but already felt” (36). Hence, poetry is a powerful tool because the genre facilitates free emotional expression and the healing from pain of loss through emotional imagery (38). 

The power of poetry is not only inherited in the refined diction and imagery but also in the formatting that portrays and legitimizes affection in female romantic friendships beyond literal representation. Since the formatting of poems can also be a source for interpretation, the way the author formats a poem serves as a powerful tool to reveal possible feelings without using any words, which could be more dangerous and lead to marginalization. For instance, in Anne Killigrew’s poem “On the Soft And Gentle Motions of Eudora” (Donoghue 11), the speaker reveals her attraction towards Eudora through the changing formatting throughout the poem; the lines become unstructured while speaking of her lover’s attractive movements (Killigrew 7). The meandering of the lines’ alignment is an effective tool to convey the emotional confusion that the appearance of Eudora provokes. According to Lorde, emotionality is fundamental to marginalized groups because they are “the sources of our hidden power” (37). Although the speaker’s emotionality is concealed due to the lack of literal expression, the distraction is visible through the disruptive form of the poem. Thus, poetry is a crucial medium to validate the existence of romantic friendships in the 17^th century because poetry provides essential possibilities to address their affection to each other without being socially ostracized. 

In conclusion, the necessity of poetry that Lorde extols unfolds in the multiplicity of the power of poetry to work towards the legitimization of marginalized female romantic friendships. With different stylistic devices, namely metaphors, allegories, word choice, and formatting, poetry bears a high number of ways to indirectly but openly express homosexual affection and desire. Therefore, poetry cannot be considered a luxury good but an indispensable form of expression in romantic friendships between women in the 17^th century. Not only does poetry enable women to portray affection, desire, and devotion, but it also allows them to process grief and the loss of their lovers in a concealed way due to heteronormative boundaries. Lorde’s claim that poetry is indispensable for the existence of groups who are deviating from the societal norm is confirmed through the example of female poets in romantic friendships in the 17^th century who needed poetry to claim their safe space and survive mentally. So, the art of poetry is required to justify emotionality, legitimize relationships to the public, and process and address feelings and expectations within the homosexual community at the edge of marginalization in the 17^th century.

Works Cited

Barker, Jane. “On the Death of my Dear Friend and Play-fellow, Mrs E. D. having Dream’d the night before I heard thereof, that I had lost a Pearl.” Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire, edited by Emma Donoghue, Columbia UP, 1997, pp. 9-10. 

Behn, Aphra. “To My Lady Morland at Tunbridge.” Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire, edited by Emma Donoghue, Columbia UP, 1997, pp. 5-7.

“Cloe to Artimesa.” Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire, edited by Emma Donoghue, Columbia UP, 1997, p. 16.

Donoghue, Emma. Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire. Columbia UP, 1997.

Killigrew, Anne. “On the Soft and Gentle Motions of Eudora.” Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire, edited by Emma Donoghue, Columbia UP, 1997, p. 11.

Lorde, Audre. “Poetry Is Not a Luxury.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde, reprint ed., Crossing Press, 2007, Berkeley, CA.

Philips, Katherine. “To My Excellent Lucasia, On Our Friendship.” Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire, edited by Emma Donoghue, Columbia UP, 1997, p. 3.