'Discordant natures to combine' Anna Letitia Barbauld's poetic engagement with natural philosophy

This thesis looks at how Anna Letitia Barbauld's poetry engages with natural philosophy, or science. I explore the scientific and cultural backdrop to five of her poems that involve references to zoology, astronomy, and chemistry. I read the ways that these poems engage with larger eighteenth-century cultural discourses surrounding natural philosophy and the inequality of education for women. I also explore the connection between poetry and natural philosophy, made evident by Barbauld's verses. Due to the ability of both the study of natural philosophy and the publication of poems to thrust people onto a public stage, both are modes for gaining 'eminence.' Barbauld's poems question the value of 'eminence' over the pursuit of virtue, found, according to Barbauld's work, in domestic felicty.