Poetic Fancies
by Victoria E. Burke
In lines 4 and 8, Pulter refers to her inventions or imaginings as “fancies.” The word “fancy” was synonymous with “imagination” at this time (OED 4) but in addition to referring to a process, it could also refer to the inventions or products of imagination. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, gave her first collection of poetry the title Poems, and fancies, and in the extract below she celebrates the power of poetic creativity by personifying Fancy as painlessly emerging from a poet’s brain.
Margaret Cavendish,
Poets have most Pleasure in this Life
Poets have most Pleasure in this Life
- Nature most Pleasure doth to Poets give;
- If Pleasures in Variety do live.
- There every Sense by Fancy new is fed,
- Which Fancy in a Torrent Braine is bred.
- Contrary is to all that’s borne on Earth,
- For Fancy is delighted most at’s Birth.
- What ever else is borne, with Paine comes forth,
- But Fancy needs not time to make it grow,
- Hath neigher Beauty, Strength, nor perfect Growth.
- Those Braine like Gods, from whence all things do flow.
Source: Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Poems, and Fancies (London, 1653), p. 152, ll. 1-10, EEBO. [original italics retained]