-Unitarianism is centred around personal experience. There is a high value placed on human intellect, reason and intuition.

-Unitarianism has had a very difficult past, struggling against various other religious groups in Britain.

THESIS: Evidence of Barbauld's Unitarian faith in her poem 'Corsica'.

1. Social and political pressure against Unitarians, caused Barbauld to be constantly under attack and needing defend her belief system. Her strength under such attacks probably strengthened her political opinions as well. Barbauld was taught to exercise her freedom of mind through religious persecution, and 'Corsica' is a poem chalk full of political opinions.

2. Barbauld could easily relate to the Corsican people, as she belonged to a small group which struggled against a larger group - like Corsica against France.

3. In 'Corsica', Barbauld mentions individual people a few times (Paoli, James Boswell and the poet, herself). This indicates the poet's awareness of the role of the individual in politics. This awareness may arise from the importance of the individual in Unitarianism.

4. Paoli is described as almost Christ-like in 'Corsica'. Barbauld's portrait of Paoli, may have been strongly influenced by the great value placed on the individual in Unitarianism, as well as the fact that Unitarians think that Christ was a supreme human, not God.

5. In the 18th C. Anthology the editors write: 'Barbauld's Unitarian beliefs inform much of her writing. In rejecting the doctrine of the trinity in favour of the unipersonality of God, Unitarianism stressed the abiding goodness of human nature, and saw the figure of God the Father as subsuming Jesus Christ's love and the Holy Spirit's universality, so as to become a single all-embracing force ('GOD is seen in all and all in GOD...Wrought in each flower, inscrib'd in evry tree' (Address to the Deity - 1767, 56)

-Nature is very important in Barbauld's Corsica, exalted to an almost ethereal level, as though Barbauld sees God in nature and in other small details noted throughout the poem (like the hamlets in lines 44 & 45).

6.The importance of the individual in Unitarianism (including women as individuals)--or Barbauld's position as a female poet--or the fact that traditionally certain qualities are consistently feminized--may have all contributed to Barbauld's feminizing both LIBERTY and VIRTUE.