Anna Laetitia Barbauld's Caterpillar

Description: 

Anna Laetitia Barbauld wrote a poem called "The Caterpillar" which is another poem about her empathy towards animals. However, this story teaches more of a lesson. The narrator of this poem has had a habit of killing caterpillars, and at the beginning of this poem, she had just murdered another caterpillar family until she feels remorse for the single one that survived her attack. She is moved and decides to no longer kill caterpillars anymore after seeing this single insect bravely escaping her attacks. This poem can teach us as humans that we can always step away and break our bad habits. In this case, the narrator of Barbauld's poem learns to change her habit of killing caterpillars. At the conclusion of this poem, she even writes "Tis not virtue, Yet 'tis not weakness of a virtuous mind" (lines 41-42). To me, this means that her killing caterpillars is not virtuous, but it isn't a weakness to realize the harm of it and stop. She admits a flaw at the end, and admits that it isn't bad to change this old habit of hers and before this line, she compares her situation to a soldier in war murdering others brutally and then stopping when he too, sees one other soldier fleeing from the battlefield. While brutal actions are described in this poem, there is a general moral that humans are capable of change, even if this doesn't erase actions from the past. As humans, it is important to remember to learn from our bad habits, and remember that if we find something flawed within ourselves, we are capable of changing and growing. 

Barbauld Laetitia, Anna. "The Caterpillar." The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 11th edition, vol. D, W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 52-53.

Beaufort, Jean. Caterpillar. Public Domain Pictures, https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=223657&pict....

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Timeline of Events Associated with Anna Laetitia Barbauld's Caterpillar

Anna Laetitia Barbauld is born

20 Jun 1743

File:Anna Laetitia Barbauld 1822 engraving.jpg

The Romantic poet, Anna Laetitia Barbauld was born on June 20th, 1743. She was the oldest out of two siblings, and she was able to read sentences and short stories at the age of two. When she was 15, her father acquired a position at Warrington Academy in Lancashire. At this school, Barbauld made many friends and she spent time developing her poetic skills. Before she had reached the age of 30, she had published a volume of her works which included lyrics, odes, songs, and hymns. Some examples of her poems are "The Mouse's Petition" and "The Caterpillar." In these poems, she tended to humanize animals or express empathy in regards to them. By doing so, she is expressing her values through these animals. In "The Mouse's Petition" for instance, the mouse is trapped within a cage and is suffering, and pleas to a human to hear the mouse out and set it free. By pleading towards a human, and kindly reassuring that the human has a "hospitable hearth" as seen in line 14, the mouse has human qualities, and many people throughout time have felt restricted in some way like the mouse is in this poem. Even so, by writing poems in which an animal has human-like qualities, it tells us as readers today that Anna Laetitia Barbauld cared for animals even smaller than her by bringing them human qualities. We are all living, and we all have lessons to learn and desires to strive towards alongside struggles. 

Sources:

"Anna Laetitia Barbauld." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets….

Barbauld Laetitia, Anna. "The Mouse's Petition."The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 11th edition, vol. D, W.W. Norton, 2012, pp. 57-58.

Meyer Hoppner, Henry. Anna Laetitia Barbauld. 1822. Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…....

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Part of Group:

Artist: 

  • Jean Beaufort

Image Date: 

circa. 21st century