Why Barber wrote poetry, in her own words: "My Aim being chiefly to form the
Minds of my Children"
Though she claims to use poetry to educate her children, Barber
simultaneously educates her audience about the value of the female mind; as
her poems voice her private opinions of the status of women writers.
Barber uses a letter to convey these grievances against patriarchal
prejudice. Barber uses the excuse of her son Con's education as a means of
conveying her opinions. Educating her son (whilst simultaneously educating
her audience) about female potential and intellect is the best way she can
ensure that women poets are accepted and valued in future. In addition the
literary mode of a letter enabled Barber to escape her domestic world and
enter the literary world.
Bernard Tucker, editor a 1992 edition of The Poetry of Mary Barber writes,
in his introduction, that: "Mary Barber wrote poems in her role as a mother.
These gave her the opportunity to assert as least some form of authority
(that of a mother) where she was (as a woman) pushed to one side and
ignored. As a mother she was able to write at least social criticism rather
than the expected saccharine sentiments expected of a (mere) mother writing
`verse'.
An elegiac poem tends to the poet's bereavement process, as it expresses a
form of grief.
In the poem "An Epitaph..." Wright writes about herself while adopting the
tone of an impartial observer. This is perhaps a way of attaining
recognition for her person, which may have otherwise gone unnoticed. Wright
also struggled with melancholy, thus may have been self-pitying in poetry.
She often addresses the power of destiny in her poems - according to Wright,
Fate is a strong force against her personal search for happiness. However,
she makes a conscious decision not to succumb to death, but to write about
it.
In "To an Infant..." reads like a lullaby. As Wright elegizes her child in
this poem she simultaneously exorcises her inner grief and melancholy. There
are many references to the heaviness of Death and Fate. Very emotional poet
- expressions of grief in a raw form.
Pre-Romantic and sentimental poet. The sentimental poet’s work is deemed
overwrought because she supplies personal emotion in excess of the object
being praised.
Walter Scott to write that: "Miss Seward was in practice trained and
attached to that school of picaresque and florid description, of lofty
metaphor and bold personification, of a diction which inversion and use of
compound epithets rendered [her] as remote as possible from the tone of
ordinary language...she particularly demanded beauty, elegance or splendor
of language."
The definition of "topography", according to the Oxford English Dictionary
it is the "science or practice of describing a particular place, city, town,
parish or tract of land" and is the "accurate and detailed delineation and
description of any locality."
Seward's poem compares Colebrook Dale's current industrial scene to the
pre-industrial scenery of harmony and beauty. This comparison intensifies
the destruction of a paradise. Coalbrookdale in Shropshire was the seat of
the Industrial Revolution and the site of a huge ironworks. She feels the
landscape was not meant for invasion or control. The exploitation of land
continues for the sake of money and material possession. Seward sees the
loss of natural landscape as a loss of British identity. Ironically, Seward
writes about the ugliness of commerce as she simultaneously makes the
content artistic by placing it in poetic form. Her inspiration to write
stems from this ugly landscape.