Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Historical Context: Female Poets during the Romantic Period

Although there had certainly been successful female English poets before (such as Aphra Behn and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), the late 18th and early 19th centuries opened up more possibilities for women. More women had the education they needed to express themselves, even if they were pressured to remain within the "private sphere."

'Bluestockings'—educated women—remained targets of masculine scorn, as we have seen. This became, nonetheless, the first era in literary history in which women writers began to compete with men in their numbers, sales, and literary reputations. These female authors had to tread carefully, to be sure, to avoid suggesting that (as one male critic fulminated) they wished the nation's 'affectionate wives, kind mothers, and lovely daughters' to be metamorphosed into 'studious philosophers' and 'busy politicians.' And figures like Wollstonecraft, who in the Vindication of the Rights of Women grafted a radical proposal about gender equality onto a more orthodox argument about the education women needed to be proper mothers, remained exceptional. Later women writers tended cautiously to either ignore her example or define themselves against it.

Norton Anthology of English Literature

The subject matter and tone tend to be different in Romantic poetry written by women. After all, women lived in a very different sphere and had different experiences and perspectives than their male contemporaries.

Authorial Context: Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825)

Barbauld grew up in Leicestershire, England. Her father was the headmaster of a progressive boys' school, so she had unique exposure to the arts and sciences. Still, she had to beg her father to teach her classic languages and literature. 

Barbauld published her first collection of poems in 1773, at the encouragement of her friends. The collection established her as a respected poet, and she continued to publish poems, essays, and children's books. Simultaneously, she taught alongside her husband at an academy in Suffolk and maintained a household. Following her husband's tragic suicide in 1808, Barbauld picked up writing again. Unfortunately, her political poem "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven" (1812) was attacked violently by the critics; as a result, Barbauld never published again. 

Despite this abrupt end to her career, Barbauld had a lasting impact on Romantic poetry and female poets. For example, her works Lessons for Children and Hymns in Prose influenced William Blake's poems. In her poems and essays, Barbauld fought for the oppressed with the rationality of the Enlightenment and the passion of Romanticism.

"The Mouse's Petition" (1773)

Poem Context

Barbauld released this poem with the subtitle, "Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air."

She presented the poem to Dr. Joseph Priestley (who would later discover oxygen through his experiments!) in the hopes that he might release the mice he tested on. According to her, the poem is a "petition of mercy against justice."

01:59

Embedded here is an audio performance of the poem. To help with comprehension, listen along as you read or before/after you read.

Oh! hear a pensive prisoner's prayer,
For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the wretch's cries.

For here forlorn and sad I sit, [5]
Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at th' approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.

If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain, [10]
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.

Oh! do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd [15]
A prize so little worth.

The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My frugal meals supply;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny, [20]

The cheerful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.

The well taught philosophic mind [25]
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.

If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame, [30]
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same,

Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand [35]
Dislodge a kindred mind.

Or, if this transient gleam of day
Be all of life we share,
Let pity plead within thy breast,
That little all to spare. [40]

So may thy hospitable board
With health and peace be crown'd;
And every charm of heartfelt ease
Beneath thy roof be found.

So when destruction lurks unseen, [45]
Which men like mice may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare.

"The Mouse's Petition"

How could the mouse's petition also be a human petition?

"On the Expected General Rising of the French Nation in 1792" (1792)

Poem Context

Many tenets of Romanticism—individual freedom, passionate beliefs, spontaneity of emotion—reflect the "Age of Revolutions" that occurred at the end of the 18th century. Romantic poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge fully supported the French Revolution at its earliest stages. Here, Barbauld expresses her feelings about the revolution in verse.

Vocabulary Guide

• Despots: tyrants

• Tocsin: alarm bell

• Plighted: pledged to be married

• Briareus: 100-armed, 50-headed giant of Greek mythology

• Transient: impermanent

01:51

Embedded here is an audio performance of the poem. To help with comprehension, listen along as you read or before/after you read.

Rise, mighty nation, in thy strength,
And deal thy dreadful vengeance round;
Let thy great spirit, roused at length,
Strike hordes of despots to the ground!

Devoted land! thy mangled breast [5]
Eager the royal vultures tear;
By friends betrayed, by foes oppressed—
And Virtue struggles with Despair.

The tocsin sounds! arise, arise!
Stern o'er each breast let Country reign; [10]
Nor virgin's plighted hand, nor sighs,
Must now the ardent youth detain:

Nor must the hind who tills thy soil
The ripened vintage stay to press,
Till Rapture crown the flowing bowl, [15]
And Freedom boast of full success.

Briareus-like extend thy hands,
That every hand may crush a foe;
In millions pour thy generous bands,
And end a warfare by a blow! [20]

Then wash with sad repentant tears
Each deed that clouds thy glory's page;
Each frenzied start impelled by fears,
Each transient burst of headlong rage:

Then fold in thy relenting arms [25]
Thy wretched outcasts where they roam;
From pining want and war's alarms,
0 call the child of misery home!

Then build the tomb—O not alone
Of him who bled in Freedom's cause; [30]
With equal eye the martyr own
Of faith revered and ancient laws.

Then be thy tide of glory stayed;
Then be thy conquering banners furled;
Obey the laws thyself hast made, [35]
And rise the model of the world!

"On the Expected General Rising of the French Nation in 1792"

Barbauld seems generally supportive of the revolution. Does she include any cautionary words to the rebels?