Anna Letitia Barbauld's The Rights Of Woman

Works of literature are proof that although there are differences in opinions and customs throughout the course of time, same concepts can still be incorporated in them. The Romantic Era is best known for the unwinding of the individual self. Prior to this Era, it was not common for a person, especially a man, to express emotions and thereupon compare those emotions to nature. The Victorian Era is centralized around the beliefs and customs of Queen Victoria and the takeoff of the Industrial Revolution. The Modernist Era, up until the twenty first century is generally focused on the impact of reality and a wake up from the illusion that everything would fall into place. The Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist Era, although centralized on rather

Barbauld’s intended audience is primarily women, but this poem is also directed to remove a metaphorical blindfold men had when they looked at women. The poem starts off by declaring, “Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right! Woman! too long degraded, scorned, oppressed;” (line 1 and 2). This is a powerful way to start a poem. The first line does not only declare women to take on initiative, but it specifically mentions “injured” women. Injured is a word that can describe a woman that had been oppressed, looked down upon, underestimated, etc. The word injured in this case, does not necessarily refer to a physical injury, but instead a psychological or emotional injury. In the second line, Barbauld is motivating women to realize their true worth and to not allow themselves to be belittled and underestimated. Barbauld maintains a tone of enough-is-enough, but her diction in no way ever conveys that men are worthless or meaningless. By doing this, she emphasizes the need for women to take on a stand as individuals, but never shuts down men to not have an interest in reading her works. She not only motivates women to realize their true worth, but also inspires men to take on a second look at everything that their “trophy wives” are truly capable of accomplishing. Barbauld felt no need to talk harshly about men, because she was surrounded by her father and brothers, before marrying Rochemont Barbauld. Her father and brothers were the ones that allowed her to receive an education. Fiona Stafford, who published a journal for Oxford University Press, states “Her career as a poet, too, was bound up with the literary enterprises of her brother, John Aikin, who appears to have cajoled her into publishing her first poems and continued to provide encouragement and outlets for her work even in the 1790s when she had become a well-established writer.” Because