The Victorian Poetess, written by Susan Brown is a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry that explores the influential, as well as contradictory, understandings of the Victorian poetess, as informed by "a commodified aestheticism that frequently conflates the woman poet's body with her literary corpus."  Brown suggests that the major problem that faced women writers was that they were seen as the poetry; "they live and inspire it but they do not write it."  And, as Edgar Allan Poe observed "the death... of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world."  Brown goes on to show how poets, both male and female, used the image of the mortified poetess to their own ends. She then explores the re-identification of the poetess that occurred as domestic ideologies changed following Victoria's ascension to the throne. 

Letitia Elizabeth Landon's Sappho tells the story of Sappho, a young woman from classical Greece who fell in love with a man named Phaon.  When Phaon "[forgets] the fondness of" Sappho, she realizes that "genius, riches, fame, / May not soothe slighted love" and she tosses herself into the sea as a final act of love.  The character of Sappho embodies the power of female love as the speaker describes how Sappho sees Phaon as "her heart's sole universe... Hope, Genius, Energy, the God / Her inmost spirit worshiped."  However, while Sappho appears as an inferior to Phaon, giving him her undying attention, her songs of love become famous causing thousands to kneel before her worshiping her very presence, thereby elevating her to a saint-like status where her "name / Will be remembered long as Love or Song / Are sacred." L.E.L uses the figure of Sappho to embody the ideals of the poetess - the abandoned woman struggling between art and love, profession and gender and the desire for fame while adhering to the demands of society. 

Anne K. Mellor's article The Female Poet and the Poetess, focuses on female-authored poetry that does not conform to the poetic practices associated with what critics have dubbed "the poetess."  Through this process Mellor shows the variety of rhetorical methods that female authors have used, arguing that they cannot be  stereotyped with the often though of feminine literary desires such as: the embracing of Edmund Burke's aesthetic of "the beautiful," the condemnation of poetic fame and the focus of love and domestic affections as primary to a woman's happiness.  Instead, Mellor looks at authors such as Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Helen Maria Williams and Anna Letitia Barbauld and how they wrote poetry that is both didactic and political, arguing for wide-ranging social and political reform either broadly, or through responding to specific political events such as the French Revolution. 
Mellor also focuses on the origins of the female poet tradition, tracing it back to female preachers who embraced and followed the 17th century Quaker theology, including a belief in a divine Inner Light that allowed them to speak in public.  Moving forward into the late 18th century, many female preachers used scriptural evidence to give them the right to speak in public, and often identified themselves as "the voice of Christian virtue."  Mellor suggests that this tradition of female authored poetry was born through the political aspect of having to prove their right to preach in public, as well as the didactic nature of teaching Christian virtues.

Anna Letitia Barbauld's Juvenalian satire Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, looks at Britain's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, and the detrimental effect it had on the nation.  In an extremely pessimistic tone Barbauld foretells the fall of Britain as a great power, instead suggesting that America will rise as the new world power.  She sees Britain as "an island Queen amidst [her] subject sea," where "the golden tide of Commerce" is leaving her shore, crossing to her "subjects" in America.  Barbauld subscribes to the didactic and political tradition of feminine poetry shying away from the literary tradition of the poetess, instead warning her readers that "thou who hast shared the guilt must share the woe."   In sharp contrast to the aesthetic-inspired "poetess", Barbauld pulls more from the tradition that Mellor describes, by calling for reform through critiquing a specific political event.

Peggy Davis' essay Recent Criticism of the Poetess, reviews the recent "flurry of critical attention devoted to the poetess and the development of women’s writing in general."  Through this examination, Davis summarizes some of the major ideas of modern critical thinking towards Victorian feminine poetry, such as: the canonization and de-canonization of the poetess, the lack of political criticism due to societal constraints, the non-existence of a unified tradition of the Poetess, the recognition or rejection of feminist ideals, the shift in aesthetic values, the effects of economic success on the poetess and the tran-Atlantic influence of Felicia Hemans.  Davis' essay stands as a road map for information on modern day literary criticism of the Victorian poetess, as well as being a wealth of knowledge in of itself.

This review of Tricia Looten's book Lost Saints: Silence, Gender, and Victorian Literary Canonization by Chnythia Scheinberg, covers the methods that Looten uses in connecting Victorian era "poet worship" and canonization.  While Scheinberg criticizes Looten for "[backing] off into the secular camp too far," she does acknowledge that Looten finds a good balance between secular and religious criticism.  The review commends Looten's new look at the "cult"-like status Shakespearean female characters held during the Victorian era, and in particular, the criticism of Anna Jameson.  Furthermore, the review explores the chapters on Elizabeth Browning and Christina Rossetti, and looks at how Looten, rather than focusing on the establishment of canonization, delves into the processes that led to both writers being canonized.  Finally, Looten attacks current feminist readings of texts, asserting how some critics wrongly seek to connect the idea of the "true poet" with the "true feminist" in an attempt to further their own arguments.