The woman in Barbauld’s poetry
Throughout history, Western society has conceived the difference between sexes as a supposed superiority of men in front of women. Assigning traditional gender roles in domestic spaces, women have been relegated to the background in which man has been the center of a hegemonic discourse. However, this situation of inequality resulted in the creation of different social movements in order to eliminate the privileges that man has enjoyed during history.
Already in the 18th century, figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft and other feminist pioneers revindicated the right of women to an education similar to that of men, since unlike what the thinkers of that time believed, women were neverlower by nature. But there were also authors who, although they dealt with feminist theme or feminism as such in their works, present a considerable ambiguity regarding their perspective on the subject. One of them was Anna Laetitia Barbauld, one of the most prolific and respected authors in 18th -century England. For this reason, the following work aims.
The romantic period in England (1785-1830)
The different revolutions that shook France and the United States at the end of the 18th century assumed a before and after in the conception of the modern world. While it is true that there was no revolution that overthrow an absolutist monarchy and established a republic of the people as in the case of France, the English country experienced a great social change. Abrams and Greenblatt indicate that the fact that England went from being a "agricultural" society, where all power was concentrated in the aristocracy, to a "modern industrial nation" resulted in a disconcerting period of time and even "turbulent" . Likewise, the fear that inflation and economic depression through which the country was going through after fighting for years in the American War of Independence could encourage revolutionary radicals to import liberal ideologies resulted in a repression response for the mostTraditional British High Society. Such was the situation at the end of the century that the right to habeas corpus or to be able to meet publicly were temporarily suspended.
Although there were many intellectuals who, like Edmund Burke, attacked the French revolution in their reflections (1790), Abrams and Greenblatt indicate that they were surpassed in number by liberal thinkers related to the revolution. The feminist and writer Mary Wollstonecraft positioned himself on this last side and wrote just one year after the beginning of the revolution to vindication of the rights of men (1790), a brief in which he justified it and advocated an English democratic republic. Two years later, in 1792, he would write the essay through which he would go to the history books, vindict of the rights of Woman, and which Anna Laetitia Barbauld would leave to write his poem "The Rights of Woman" (1792).
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Born in a wealthy family, Anna Laetitia Aikin (later Barbauld) received an "unusual" education in the Warrington Academy of Lancashire, a center in which his father, the reverend John Aikin gave classes. Unlike the women of that time, Barbauld had access a "modern curriculum" offered by the Academy, in which languages such as "Latin, Greek or Italian", literatures and natural sciences prevailed before other old educational systems (Ibid.). Firm opponent of England’s declaration of war to France, Abrams and Greenblatt defend Barbauld’s committed attitude regarding society. Defender of a "democratic government and public education", in addition to her moralist narrative for children and Bardauld poetry also criticized Great Britain’s intervention in the slave trade in her "Epistle to William Wilberforce".
"The Rights of Woman"
While it is true that Anna Barbauld was a socially compromised writer, especially with the abolitionist cause, following the growth of gender studies in recent decades, she has been labeled as "antifminist". One of the reasons why it is considered as such was the response as a poem that made "The vindication of the rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft.
There is some discrepancy among academics regarding the feminism of Anna Laetitia Barbauld. While many argue that in their response to Wollstancraft Barbauld made use of irony to ridicule the proto-feminist movement, others such as Sara Dustin defend the positioning in favor of the author’s female rights. To argue this idea, Dustin affirms that Barbauld shared many favorable ideas to women with Wollstonecraft such as women’s education, "the conception of marriage as an oppressive construction for women" (IV) or "slavery system". Likewise, both authors criticized the "concern of the high female classes with fashion" when the really necessary, in their opinion, was to encourage education and "cultivate their minds" (IV). In fact, it is important to mention that neither Barbauld was "so conservative", nor Wollstonecraft "so radical" as far as feminism refers, since the latter "established gender roles according to the system".
At first glance, "The Rights of Woman" seems a claim poem;However, as we advance in its reading, we realize that there are certain ambiguities that can lead us to think about an ironic message. In this way, the poem can be interpreted as a feminist or as a ridiculization of feminism, although it is not a debate that can be closed in its entirety.
The first verses of the poem invite women to a revolution, in which to take control and demand their rights «Yes, Injuraled Woman! RISE, Assert Thy Right!»(V. 1). The woman, denigrated, oppressed and ridiculed, was born to govern despite the fact that the patriarchal system does not allow it "too long degraded, scorned, oppress;/or born to rule in partial law’s loom" (vv. 23). However, later Barbauld defines women as an "angelic purity" (V. 6), which drastically contrasts with the aforementioned. In this way, Barbauld is giving women a stereotypical characteristic established by the system while at the same time they are sending a message to abolish that same system. As for the weapons that women could use to overthrow the system, seeing what was mentioned in the first stanza of the poem, one might think that Barbauld was referring to the female intellect. However, Anna is representing that "artillery" through tender and sweet voice tones, blushing and soft tones, being graceful or vulnerable (VV. 9-12).
Later, facing the end of the poem, Barbauld shows the impossibility of reaching a world in which men and women act as friends, in equality, because he considers that man is treacherous and would subdue it again. That is why the only woman’s option not to be subjected, is to submit, hence Barbauld says "Make traraceroous man thy subject, not Thy Fritee" (V.19). However, the last two stanzas of his "The Rights of Woman" are the most controversial. In them, the woman is encouraged to abandon each of her most ambitious thoughts or desires (v. 29), that is, it is retracting everything said in the previous stanzas, arguing that they will not be able to maintain that state, since sooner or later they will be softened and succumb again by their very nature. This is undoubtedly controversial because it does not fit the feminist ideals that defend that women can fight and get more, since, according to Barbauld, the important thing is not to have the same rights, since these being different, the idea of loveromantic that prevails in the system should be sufficient for them.
conclusion
Finally, it is worth mentioning that this poem is not a specific case in Anna Barbauld’s work as far as controversy and ambiguity is concerned. In his poem "Washing Day", written a few years later, many critics see an exaltation or glorification of women’s power over man, while others see a satirical poem that ridicule the work of the home of the female day -to -day life.
Cases such as Barbauld show that like all human creation literature is a subjective art, so there will be two equal poem readings. In the event that the author had really had positions contrary to feminism at some points, he would demonstrate that the oppressor system he lived was efficient enough to find allies among women.
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