An Collins and the Seventeenth-Century Mortalism Controversy

“The Soul (say they) doth with the Body dy,” writes An Collins in her sole book of poetry, Divine Songs and Meditacions (1653). With that statement, Collins begins her attack on mortalism, the belief that the soul dies or sleeps with the body in the grave rather than ascending to heaven following the death of an individual. Through a discussion of mortalism within the context of her own infirm body, the poet reveals an anxiety regarding the status of the soul prior to Judgment Day that is simultaneously doctrinal and personal.