(Wo)man

It seems that the women poets of the Romantic Period are very much like their male counterparts. Anna Letitia Barbauld would be the female version of William Wordsworth in overall style and format. Likewise, Joanna Baillie would be the female William Blake or Samual Taylor Coleridge; both seem to echo Baillie – or Baillie seems to echo Blake and Coleridge. When Barbauld writes, she uses very free-verse style: just like Wordsworth. Barbauld writes in “Washing-Day” that “The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost/ The buskined step, and clear high-sounding phrase,/ Language of gods. Come the, domestic Muse,/ (lines 1-3)”. From “Lines”, Wordsworth writes, “Five years have passed; five summers, with length/ Of five long winters! and again I hear/ These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs (lines 1-3)”. As the reader can compare, they styles are very much the same between the two. There are no rhymes at the end of the line – the verses are very free. Also, notice the lack of punctuation at the end of the lines. While some poems use commas, these use punctuation differently. Both poets ignore the line-endings as an end to the sentence and use punctuation in the middle of the line. Both poets also use very passionate language that can be read more like prose than poetry. Both Baubald and Wordsworth use thing such as “language of gods.” and “Of five long winters!” In that, the reader is able to see the quick, fiery passion with which the author writes.

And even though a poet decides to use some kind of rhyme scheme, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have that same quick, intense passion.

Baillie writes in her poem, “A Mother to Her Waking Infant”, “Now in thy dazzled half-oped eye,/ Thy curled nose and lip awry,/ Up-hoisted arms and noddling head,/ And little chin with crystal spread,/ (lines 1-4).” She writes about a child – about youth. This seems very much like something Blake would write from Songs of Innocence. He writes in “The Echoing Green” that, “Round the laps of their mothers,/ Many sisters and brothers,/ Like birds in their nest,/ Are ready for rest;/ (lines 1-4).” There is a rhyme scheme in both poems; each poet uses the end of a line  as a place to breathe for the reader. Unlike the Barbauld and Wordsworth, Baillie and Blake have a structure that they tend to stick to.

The only real difference between the quad is that the female poets write about things like washing and market and children. The chores are things that women do every single day in common life. There are always clothes to be mended, things to buy, and children to soothe or feed. The male half writes about things like Earth-nature or just youth in general, and not the connection that a mother feels to a child. Barbauld and Baillie write about a woman’s nature whereas Blake and Wordsworth write about things like seasonal nature. Therein lies the major difference between the quad of poets – between the Romantic sexes.