Professional opportunities for female poets in the second half of the 18th century. ProtoRomanticism of Baillie and Barbauld. Question of description of human emotion. Baillie's interest in the passions. Comparison with and difference from Wordsworth. Barbauld's poem to Coleridge. Getting from Pope to Coleridge in two lines: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" (Pope) to "Dreamy twilight of the vacant mind" (Barbauld, on Coleridge). Barbauld's and Baillie's progressivism. Their interest in vicarious experience, especially their protoWordsworthian interest in the young. Coleridge a youth too, to Barbauld.
view more