Literary Analysis Of Ann Finch's 'A Letter To Daphnis'

Use of the couplet comes with negative connotations in poetry. Recent critics have deemed their use conservative, rigid and fundamentally predictable. However, I will argue that for many poets composing in heroic couplets, their neatness and symmetry allows a chance to contain and accurately express complex subjects too more accurately contained and precisely expressed than in more relaxed rhyme schemes. Subjects such as love and nature can be presented in measured line lengths that are still capable of changes of pace, conveying intense emotion with ease. Furthermore, the heroic couplet’s iambic pentameter provides perfect scope for naturalistic conversational musings and reactions to stimulus. One can consider these effects alongside the

Finch wrote in Augustan times, where there was an intense need for desire and order. Indeed, Margaret Doody and Stephen Dobyns have said that the heroic couplet is a ‘perfectly neat reflection’ of the values of the time . Thus Finch could be seen to capitalise on this trend. However, the couplet is used somewhat unconventionally here compared to Layner, as it wittily and epigramically expresses an unconventional view: ‘Who says that husbands can’t be lovers?’ David Caplan’s words ‘the heroic couplet works hard to catch a stranger’s eye’ ring true here, as the form draws attention to the key debate, by disrupting the relentless flow of iambic pentameter in line 5. The addition of a dactyl at the end of ‘And to the world by tenderest proof discovers’ makes a reader pause and pay attention to the aforementioned key question in line 6. Furthermore, the tercet in the middle couplets demonstrates that Finch’s love for her husband cannot be contained by the couplet form and is breaking free of its confines. Punctuation and lists within short lines create a relentless pulse of Finch’s longing for her husband, who was absent from court, whilst occasional enjambment creates open couplets, as if the subject matter is escaping from its form. Thus whilst Finch adopts a timely verse form to contain inexpressible emotion she candidly addresses an unconventional view that transcends conventional verse form. Thus whilst heroic couplets are used to describe high subjects such as nature and love, they are perhaps at their most flexible when deliberately broken. This strengthens the couplet’s cause as a device allowing conversational ease and presenting arguments naturalistically within fixed