Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (, by herself possibly , as in French, Aikin; 20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825) was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A prominent member of the Blue Stockings Society and a " woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career that spanned more than half a century.

She was a noted teacher at the Palgrave Academy and an innovative writer of works for children. Her primers provided a model for more than a century. Her essays showed it was possible for a woman to be engaged in the public sphere; other women authors such as Elizabeth Benger emulated her. Barbauld's literary career spanned numerous periods in British literary history: her work promoted the values of the enlightenment and of sensibility, while her poetry made a founding contribution to the development of British Romanticism. Barbauld was also a literary critic. Her anthology of 18th-century novels helped to establish the canon as it is known today.

The publication of '' Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' in 1812, which criticised Britain's participation in the Napoleonic Wars, received negative reviews after which she continued to write poetry but not publish in the public sphere. Barbauld's reputation was further damaged when many of the Romantic poets she had inspired in the heyday of the French Revolution turned against her in their later, more conservative years. Barbauld was remembered only as a pedantic children's writer in the 19th century, and largely forgotten in the 20th, until the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1980s renewed interest in her works and restored her place in literary history.

Sources

Much of what is known about Barbauld's life comes from two memoirs, the first published in 1825 and written by her niece, Lucy Aikin, and the second published in 1874, written by her great-niece Anna Letitia Le Breton. Some letters from Barbauld to others also exist. However, a great many Barbauld family documents were lost in a fire that resulted from the London Blitz in 1940.

Early life

Barbauld was born on 20 June 1743 at Kibworth Harcourt in Leicestershire to Jane and John Aikin. She was named after her maternal grandmother and referred to as "Nancy" (a nickname for Anna). She was baptised by her mother's brother, John Jennings, in Huntingdonshire two weeks after her birth. Barbauld's father was headmaster of the Dissenting academy in Kibworth Harcourt and minister at a nearby Presbyterian church.

She spent her childhood in what Barbauld scholar William McCarthy describes as "one of the best houses in Kibworth and in the very middle of the village square". She was much in the public eye, as the house was also a boys' school. The family had a comfortable standard of living. McCarthy suggests they may have ranked with large freeholders, well-to-do tradesmen, and manufacturers. At Barbauld's father's death in 1780, his estate was valued at more than £2,500.

Barbauld commented to her husband in 1773: "For the early part of my life I conversed little with my own Sex. In the Village where I was, there was none to converse with." Barbauld was surrounded by boys as a child and adopted their high spirits. Her mother attempted to subdue these, which would have been viewed as unseemly in a woman; according to Lucy Aikin's memoir, what resulted was "a double portion of bashfulness and maidenly reserve" in Barbauld's character. Barbauld was uncomfortable with her identity as a woman and believed she had failed to live up to the ideal of womanhood; much of her writing would focus on issues central to women, and her outsider perspective allowed her to question many of the traditional assumptions about femininity being made in the 18th century.

Barbauld demanded that her father teach her the classics and after much pestering, he did. She had the opportunity to learn not only Latin and Greek, but French, Italian, and many other subjects generally deemed unnecessary for women at the time. Barbauld's penchant for study worried her mother, who expected her to end up a spinster because of her intellectualism. The two were never so close as Barbauld and her father. Yet Barbauld's mother was proud of her accomplishments and in later years wrote of her daughter, "I once indeed knew a little girl who was as eager to learn as her instructors could be to teach her, and who at two years old could read sentences and little stories in her wise book, roundly, without spelling; and in half a year more could read as well as most women; but I never knew such another, and I believe never shall".

Barbauld's brother, John Aikin, described their father as "the best parent, the wisest counsellor, the most affectionate friend, every thing that could command love and veneration". Barbauld's father prompted many such tributes, although Lucy Aikin described him as excessively modest and reserved. Barbauld developed a strong bond with her only sibling during childhood, standing in as a mother figure to him; they eventually became literary partners. In 1817, Joanna Baillie commented of their relationship: "How few brothers and sisters have been to one another what they have been through so long a course of years!".

In 1758, the family moved to Warrington Academy, halfway between the growing industrial cities of Liverpool and Manchester, where Barbauld's father had been offered a teaching position. Some of the founders of the academy were members of Octagon Chapel, whose creedless and liberal "Liverpool Liturgy" formed a starting point for her beliefs and writings The Academy drew many luminaries of the day, such as the natural philosopher and Unitarian theologian Joseph Priestley, and came to be known as "the Athens of the North" for its stimulating intellectual atmosphere.

Another instructor may have been the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. School records suggest he taught French there in the 1770s. He may also have been a suitor to Barbauld – he allegedly wrote to John Aikin declaring his intention to become an English citizen and marry her. Archibald Hamilton Rowan also fell in love with Barbauld, describing her later as "possessed of great beauty, distinct traces of which she retained to the latest of her life. Her person was slender, her complexion exquisitely fair with the bloom of perfect health; her features regular and elegant, and her dark blue eyes beamed with the light of wit and fancy."

First literary successes and marriage

In 1773, Barbauld brought out her first book of poems, after her friends had praised them and convinced her to publish them.Rodgers, p. 57. The collection, entitled simply ''Poems'', went through four editions in a single year and surprised Barbauld by its success. Barbauld became a respected literary figure in England on the reputation of ''Poems'' alone. In the same year, she and her brother, John Aikin, jointly published ''Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose'', which was also well received. The essays in it (most of which were by Barbauld) were favourably compared to those of Samuel Johnson.

In May 1774, despite some "misgivings", Barbauld married Rochemont Barbauld (1749–1808), the grandson of a French Huguenot and a former pupil at Warrington. According to Barbauld's niece, Lucy Aikin:

After the wedding, the couple moved to Suffolk, near where Rochemont had been offered a congregation and a school for boys. Barbauld took this time and rewrote some of the Psalms, a common pastime in the 18th century, publishing them as ''Devotional Pieces Compiled from the Psalms and the Book of Job''. Attached to this work is her essay "Thoughts on the Devotional Taste, on Sects and on Establishments", which explains her theory of religious feeling and the problems inherent in institutionalising religion.

It seems that Barbauld and her husband were concerned that they would never have a child of their own, and in 1775, after only a year of marriage, Barbauld suggested to her brother that they adopt one of his children:

After a time, her brother conceded and the couple adopted Charles. It was for him that Barbauld wrote her most famous books: '' Lessons for Children'' (1778–79) and '' Hymns in Prose for Children'' (1781). He studied surgery in Norwich under the tutelage of Philip Meadows Martineau, the son of Barbauld's friend Sarah Martineau whose granddaughter, Harriet Martineau, recalled that as a child, Barbauld, a "comely elderly lady", had visited the Martineau family home.

Palgrave Academy

Barbauld and her husband spent eleven years teaching at Palgrave Academy in Suffolk which had benefitted from the financial support of Philip Meadows (1719–83), a solicitor from nearby Diss. Early on, Barbauld was responsible not only for running her own household, but also the school's, to which she served as accountant, maid, and housekeeper. The school opened with only eight boys, but the number had risen to about forty by the time the Barbaulds left in 1785, which reflects the excellent reputation the school had acquired.

The Barbaulds' educational philosophy attracted Dissenters as well as Anglicans. Palgrave replaced the strict discipline of traditional schools such as Eton, which often used corporal punishment, with a system of "fines and jobations" and even, it seems likely, "juvenile trials", that is, trials run by and for the students themselves. Moreover, instead of the traditional classical studies, the school offered a practical curriculum that stressed science and the modern languages. Barbauld herself taught the foundation subjects of reading and religion to the youngest boys, and geography, history, composition, rhetoric and science to higher grade levels.

She was a dedicated teacher, producing a "weekly chronicle" for the school and writing theatrical pieces for the students to perform. Barbauld had a profound effect on many of her students. One who went on to great success was William Taylor, a pre-eminent scholar of German literature, who referred to Barbauld as "the mother of his mind".

Political involvement and Hampstead

In September 1785, the Barbaulds left Palgrave for a tour of France. By this time Rochemont's mental health was deteriorating and he was no longer able to carry out his teaching duties. In 1787, they moved to Hampstead, where Rochemont was asked to serve as the minister at what later became Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel. It was here that Barbauld became close friends with Joanna Baillie, the playwright.

Although no longer in charge of a school, the Barbaulds did not abandon their commitment to education; they often boarded one or two pupils recommended by personal friends. Barbauld lived on Hampstead's Church Row in the early 1800s, though it is not known exactly which house she occupied.McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'', p. 615.

During this time, the heyday of the French Revolution, Barbauld published her most radical political pieces. From 1787 to 1790, Charles James Fox attempted to convince the House of Commons to pass a law granting Dissenters full citizenship rights. When this bill was defeated for the third time, Barbauld wrote one of her most passionate pamphlets, ''An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts'' (see Test Act). Readers were shocked to discover that such a well-reasoned argument should come from a woman.

In 1791, after William Wilberforce's attempt to abolish the slave trade had failed, Barbauld published her ''Epistle to William Wilberforce Esq. On the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade'', which not only lamented the fate of the enslaved, but warned of the cultural and social degeneration the British people could expect if they did not abolish slavery. In 1792, she continued this theme of national responsibility in an anti-war sermon entitled ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'' which argued that each individual is responsible for the actions of the nation: "We are called upon to repent of national sins, because we can help them, and because we ought to help them".

Stoke Newington and later life

In 1802, the Barbaulds moved to Stoke Newington, where they lived at 113 Church Street. Rochemont took over the pastoral duties of the Unitarian Chapel at Newington Green, a mile away. Barbauld herself was happy to be nearer her brother, John, as her husband's mind was rapidly failing. Rochemont developed a "violent antipathy to his wife and he was liable to fits of insane fury directed against her. One day at dinner he seized a knife and chased her round the table so that she only saved herself by jumping out of the window."

Such scenes repeated themselves to Barbauld's great sadness and real danger, but she refused to leave him. Rochemont drowned himself in the nearby New River in 1808 and his widow was overcome with grief. When she returned to writing, she produced the radical poem '' Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' (1812), which depicted England as a ruin.

It was reviewed so viciously that according to Barbauld scholar William McCarthy, there "were no further separate publications from her pen", and Lucy Aikens went so far as to say, erroneously, that Barbauld gave up writing altogether.

McCarthy explains that Barbauld "did not entirely withdraw from print or from writing", but that she withdrew into "the waters of a deep and long depression". Barbauld confessed that her pen had been lazy in 1813, but after that year she wrote as many as three "dialogues" and an "Ode to Remorse". Until the 2010s, ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' was considered to have ended Barbauld's career, but recent scholarship has reinstated it to the Literature of Romantic literature as well as Barbauld's reputation as a poet of the period. It is now often viewed by scholars as her greatest poetic achievement.

Barbauld died in 1825, a renowned writer, and was buried in the family vault in St Mary's, Stoke Newington. After her death, a marble tablet was erected in the Newington Green Chapel with the following inscription:

In Memory of
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD,
Daughter of John Aikin, D.D.
And Wife of
The Rev. Rochemont Barbauld,
Formerly the Respected Minister of this Congregation.
She was born at Kibworth in Leicestershire, 20 June 1743,
and died at Stoke Newington, 9 March 1825.
Endowed by the Giver of all Good
With Wit, Genius, Poetic Talent, and a Vigorous Understanding
She Employed these High Gifts
in Promoting the Cause of Humanity, Peace, and Justice,
of Civil and Religious Liberty,
of Pure, Ardent, and Affectionate Devotion.
Let the Young, Nurtured by her Writings in the Pure Spirit
of Christian Morality;
Let those of Maturer Years, Capable of Appreciating
the Acuteness, the Brilliant Fancy, and Sound Reasoning
of her Literary Compositions;
Let the Surviving few who shared her Delightful
and Instructive Conversation,
Bear Witness
That this Monument Records
No Exaggerated Praise.

Legacy

At her death, Barbauld was lauded in the ''Newcastle Magazine'' as "unquestionably the first 'i.e.'', bestof our female poets, and one of the most eloquent and powerful of our prose writers" and the ''Imperial Magazine'' declared "so long as letters shall be cultivated in Britain, or wherever the English language shall be known, so long will the name of this lady be respected". She was favourably compared to both Joseph Addison and Samuel Johnson.

By 1925, however, she was remembered only as a moralising writer for children, if that. It was not until the advent of feminist literary criticism in the academic world of the 1970s and 1980s that Barbauld finally began to be included in literary history.McCarthy, ''Voice of the Enlightenment'' p. xvii.

Young poets such as Norwich's Amelia Opie greatly admired Barbauld, sending her poetry in 1787 for her to critique. However, by the early 19th century, Barbauld's remarkable disappearance from the literary landscape had taken place. This is due to a number of reasons. One of the most important was the disdain heaped upon her by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, poets who in their youthful, radical days had looked to her poetry for inspiration, but in their later, conservative years dismissed her work.

Once these poets had become canonised, their opinions held sway. Moreover, the intellectual ferment of which Barbauld was an important part of – particularly at the Dissenting academies – had by the end of the 19th century come to be associated with the "philistine" middle class, as Matthew Arnold put it. The reformist 18th-century middle class was later held responsible for the excesses and abuses of the industrial age. Finally, the Victorians viewed Barbauld as "an icon of sentimental saintliness" and "erased her political courage, her tough mindedness, ndher talent for humor and irony", to arrive at a literary figure that modernists despised.

As literary studies developed into a discipline at the end of the 19th century, the story of the origins of Romanticism in England emerged along with it. According to this version of literary history, Coleridge and Wordsworth were the dominant poets of the age. This view held sway for almost a century. Even with the advent of feminist criticism in the 1970s, Barbauld did not receive her due. As Margaret Ezell explains, feminist critics wanted to resurrect a particular kind of woman – one who was angry, who resisted the gender roles of her time, and who attempted to create a sisterhood with other women. Barbauld did not easily fit into these categories. Indeed, it was not until Romanticism and its canon began to be re-examined through a deep reassessment of feminism itself that a picture emerged of the vibrant voice that Barbauld had contributed.

H. P. Lovecraft praised her Gothic fragment "The Story of Sir Bertrand" in his essay " Supernatural Horror in Literature" (composed 1925–34), describing it as a story "in which the strings of genuine terror were truly touched with no clumsy hand" and praises "the real vibration to the note of outer darkness and mystery which distinguishes Mrs. Barbauld’s fragment."

Barbauld's works fell out of print and no full-length scholarly biography of her was written until William McCarthy's ''Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment'' in 2009.

Barbauld's adopted son Charles married a daughter of Gilbert Wakefield. Their child, Anna Letitia Le Breton, wrote literary memoirs, which included a ''Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld, including Letters and Notices of her Family and Friends'' in 1874.

In 2008, the National Portrait Gallery in London presented Barbauld's portrait alongside a number of other celebrated Bluestockings.

Literary analysis

Poetry

Barbauld's wide-ranging poetry has been read primarily by feminist literary critics interested in recovering women writers important in their own time, but forgotten in literary history. Isobel Armstrong's work represents one way to do such a study; she argues that Barbauld, like other Romantic women poets:

In her subsequent analysis of "Inscription for an Ice-House" Armstrong points to Barbauld's challenge of Edmund Burke's characterisation of the sublime and the beautiful and Adam Smith's economic theories in ''The Wealth of Nations'' as evidence for this interpretation.

The work of Marlon Ross and Anne K. Mellor represents a second way to apply the insights of feminist theory to the recovery of women writers. They argue that Barbauld and other Romantic women poets carved out a distinctive feminine voice in the literary sphere. As a woman and a dissenter, Barbauld had a unique perspective on society, according to Ross, and it was this specific position that obliged her to publish social commentary. Ross points out, however, that women were in a double bind: "They could choose to speak politics in nonpolitical modes, and thus risk greatly diminishing the clarity and pointedness of their political passion, or they could choose literary modes that were overtly political while trying to infuse them with a recognizable 'feminine' decorum, again risking a softening of their political agenda". So Barbauld and other Romantic women poets often wrote occasional poems

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