Discuss the ways in which either Anna Letitia Barbauld or Mary Robinson write poems that are i) unique to their experiences as women, and ii) implicitly or explicitly suspicious of the claim that the experiences described by their male counterparts are “universal.”

Women poets from the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century often appear less interested either in reproducing the “Romantic” ideals of their male counterparts, or accepting assumed universal ideals. Discuss the ways in which either Anna Letitia Barbauld or Mary Robinson write poems that are i) unique to their experiences as women, and ii) implicitly or explicitly suspicious of the claim that the experiences described by their male counterparts are “universal.”These poets prefer instead to recreate themselves in a space–cultural, intellectual, imaginative–that they can call their own. That’s important part I couldn’t add on the thesis. Here’s also some feedback from my last essay I would like to be seen in this one. It concerned of William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and its doctrine of contraries. Your essay is well written for the most part Cassidy. You often manage to be both clear but sophisticated which is a good balance to strike. Furthermore, your overall idea (or thesis) about what The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is trying to communicate is an excellent one. It is commendable that you draw from such a range of research, some of which (such as Frye) I know to be excellent.A serious shortcoming of the essay, however, is that it never gets down to specifically exploring Blake’s writing in this work. Thus he is not quoted once. I hope a senior-level student in English knows that a successful literary essay cannot be achieved that never engages the text she is writing about. In literary essays the instructor is almost always looking for “close readings” of the text being written about. Close reading means looking in detail at the work, considering the significance of its language, images, figures, formal features etc. The author’s text is also your evidence for your claims. So if you do not quote you have not supported your claims with evidence.Another difficulty with never engaging the work in concrete detail is that your essay remains pitched at a level of abstract general statements like the following: “Blake disrupts conventional contrasts by scrutinizing pairs such as good and evil, reason and energy, angel and devil, and innocence and experience, revealing a vision where opposites are not adversaries but intricately interwoven.” These sorts of statements are necessary but they have to be counteracted with concrete, detailed exploration of just what in particular Blake says about reason and what he says about energy. It is also often useful to think of more concrete examples of these sorts of general assertions. Thus what would be an example of a productive tension between reason and energy? This movement from the general to the particular is essential for thinking about the implications of ideas. I hope your problem with your digital copy of the Norton did not lead to you think you had better not quote the work. It would have been far better to quote even if your page references did not match the class edition.I am allowing this essay to be in the B range because it is well written and you have drawn from impressive research (though there are documentation problems here). But in the absence of any detailed engagement with Blake’s text I cannot assess it more highly. See in-text comments and suggested edits for additional concerns such as your problematic use of “contrarian.” The list of poems that we looked at from Mary Robinson and that needed to be included in this essay are “To the Poet Coleridge”, “January 1795”, “London’s Summer Morning”, “The Poor Singing Dame”, and “The Haunted Beach”. The list of poems that we looked at from Anna Letitia Barbauld and that are needed to be included in the essay are “The Rights of Woman”, “To a Little Invisible Being . . .”, and “Washing Day”

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