Katherine Austen

Katherine Austen
Born 1629
St Mary Colechurch, London, England, UK
Died 1683
Hoxton, London
Spouse(s) Thomas Austen
Parents
  • Robert Wilson (father)
  • Katherine (mother)

Katherine Austen (1629 – ca. 1683) was a British diarist and poet best known for Book M,[1] her manuscript collection of meditations, journal entries, and verse. Also, in her little-known country-house poem, "On the Situation of Highbury" (1665), appropriates select topoi from the tradition of the genre to ascribe value to the estate and to negotiate her position in relation to it.

Personal life

Early life

Austen, who lived from 1628 until 1683, resided in London through the tumultuous events of the Civil War and Restoration. She was from a wealthy mercantile family and married Thomas Austen, a man of similar wealth and rank. She and Thomas shared a strong interest in elevating their socioeconomic standing. However, Thomas did not live long enough for them to achieve their goal during his lifetime. When Thomas died in 1658, he left Katherine with three children, the management of their property, a will that restricted her ability to marry for seven years, the awareness of her widowhood as a potential vulnerability, and her continued desire for greater status, wealth, and personal power.[2]

Family Tree

Katherine Austen's Family tree

(For better quality/ bigger image, click on high resolution image)

Writings

Her manuscript of 114 folios, Book M (BL, Add. MS 4454), was written over six or seven years during her period of mourning — her "Most saddest Yeares" (60r) — and includes material on her lawsuit, interpretations of dreams (her own and others), historical commentary, prayers, letters, financial materials, and 34 verse meditations in rhyming couplets. The richest source of information about Austen is her manuscript miscellany, "Book M," which includes over thirty occasional and religious lyrics on topics such as child loss, Austen's legacy to her children, a Valentine's Day gift, her prophetic interests, and of course, Highbury. It also contains spiritual meditations, including a short essay on Hildegard of Bingen, notes on sermons, comments on her economic affairs, and correspondence. She wrote the miscellany primarily between 1664 and 1666 and made changes to it until 1682. "Book M" demonstrates her familiarity with the poetry of Richard Corbett and some of John Donne's writings (certainly his sermons, possibly his poetry).

One of her best known poems from the book is the estate poem "On the Situation of Highbury".[3] This poem demonstrates her familiarity with the genre, although her poem is unusual in leaving the estate's "dweller" anonymous.[4] She appears to have composed her poem in September 1665, when Highbury came out of lease to another holder and entered into Austen's possession. Yet waiting for the estate to come out of lease had been only one obstacle to her ownership of the estate. There had been a separate movement in Parliament earlier that year that would, if successful, have made the estate unavailable to her. Therefore, while Austen seems to have been positioned to receive the estate in September, she still relates to it as a somewhat uncertain prospect. Strictly speaking, there is neither a host nor a guest in Austen's country-house poem until the very end. Hesitant in her ownership of Highbury, the ambitious widow marshals the traditional topoi of the country-house genre so that her desire for elite status and her assertion of an authoritative voice—both complicated by her awareness of her gender as a potential liability in advancing her socioeconomic desires given her widowed state—become intertwined and mutually reinforcing.[2] Austen the poet reinforces the value of the estate, which is soon to augment her status, by inscribing it within the country-house tradition alongside other celebrated, monumentalized sites; the worthiness of the estate, which will reflect upon Austen as owner, legitimates the authority and propriety of her verse.

Austen's "On the Situation of Highbury" clearly indicates her familiarity with the tradition of country-house poetry. Her verse praises the estate's fertility and abundance; locates pleasure and joy in relation both to that self-producing abundance and to the masterful prospect of the land available from what is presumably the site of the house; and remarks the paradisal absence of hard labor at Highbury. 10Austen, however, also excludes topoi usually associated with the genre. Most significantly, she does not praise the hospitality of the owner of the estate and his or her family; she does not portray the harmony between the members of the resident family and their servants and tenants; and she does not provide glimpses of the family's history, its cross-generational existence at the estate. 11 Likewise, although Austen's representation of the fruitfulness of the land participates in the expected conventions of the genre, she does not convey the typically emblematic, derivative relationship of the estate's Edenic qualities with respect to the resident aristocratic or gentle family. The book also contains an essay on Saint Hildegard of Bingen.[4]

Later life

About a year after her husband died. Austen began her career as real-estate investor. the first project extended her interests to the west coast of Wales. Katherine Austen's widowhood would last the rest of her life. In the early 1660s Katherine bought two major London properties owned by Lady Jane Aungier.[5] She was, at least once, tempted by remarriage, but rejected the prospect in part because it would infringe on her economic activities in behalf of her children. Under the doctrine of coverture she retained her widow's status as an independent legal entity if she did not remarry. Although she did not marry she had a suitor, the Scottish doctor Alexander Callendar.[6]

She lived in Hoxton until she died.[7] The date of her death is unknown but her will was proved in 1683. She devoted her widowed years to educating and settling her children, managing her finances and properties, and to study, writing and devotion.

Resources

  1. ↑ Austen, Katherine (2013). Pamela S Hammons, ed. Book M: A London Widow's Life's Writings. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies and ITER; 1ST edition (2013). p. 216. ISBN 978-0772721501.
  2. 1 2 "EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page". eds.a.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  3. ↑ Wiseman, Susan (2002). The Contemplative Woman's Recreation? Katherine Austen and the Estate Poem. From Early modern women and the poem. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 220–243. ISBN 978-07190-9072-1.
  4. 1 2 Hammons, Pamela. "Katherine Austen's Country-House Innovations.". Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  5. ↑ "EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page". eds.b.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  6. ↑ Hammons, Pamela S. "The Other Voice" (PDF). Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  7. ↑ "Perdita Woman: Katherine Austen". University of Warwick. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
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