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Behn And The “Epitaph On The Tombstone Of A Child”, Mary Ann O'Donnell

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Aphra Behn’s poems usually celebrate some form of pastoral life or love, so much so that her “Epitaph on the Tombstone of a Child” seems anomalous in her 1685 Miscellany. The same poem (with two lines crossed out) appears in Cambridge University Library MS Add. 8460, Elizabeth Lyttelton’s Commonplace Book, where it is titled simply “Epitaph on William Fairfax.” The twelve lines also appear on one other material witness: the tomb marker for young William Fairfax, who was Elizabeth Lyttelton’s nephew and Sir Thomas Browne’s grandson. This article examines the poem itself, discusses the deleted lines, considers connections that …