More and Montagu worked diligently to procure subscribers for Yearsley’s first collection, and they did this by selling the milkmaid poet as one who possessed uncorrupted and natural talent. What is important in More’s representation of Yearsley and her writing is the efforts that Yearsley makes to push away from expected configurations of laboring-class poets. Yearsley does this in many ways throughout the collection—some explicit, some subversive—but this rejection of expectation is most notable in “Clifton Hill,” the longest and final poem of the collection. Whether or not Yearsley is directly responding to More, she resists assumptions based on class, as well as nearly every other vector of oppression that Yearsley perceives her poetry must overcome, including gender and the laboring-class poetic tradition itself. …show more content…
Yearsley answers critics who question her sincerity throughout Poems on Several Occasions, perhaps no where more obviously as in her poem “To Those Who Accuse the Author of Ingratitude,” which serves as a direct address to those who question the “feelings of Lactilla’s soul” (60). In terms of paying tribute, Yearsley operates similarly to other laboring class writers; however, she is eager to prove two seemingly conflicting notions: the first being that she is—despite popular opinion—actually grateful for assistance in the literary world, and, despite this, that she resents her degraded status (Waldron 213). Interestingly, in her address to those who she believes find her to lack gratitude Yearsley adopts an aggressive tone. She is defensive and even at times arrogant toward those who question her. Yearsley’s addresses to her detractors—“ye incapacious souls” who are mentally trapped “within your narrow orbs” (60)—are remarkable here as devices that convey both defensiveness and