\u201cA Summer\u2019s Evening\u2019s Meditation\u201d by Anna Laetitia Barbauld<\/p>\n
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This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,<\/p>\n
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.<\/p>\n
At this still hour the self-collected soul<\/p>\n
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there<\/p>\n
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank (51-55)<\/p>\n
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These lines recall \u201cShe mused away the gaudy hours of noon \/ And fed on thoughts unripened by the sun\u201d (21-22). The \u201cnoon\u201d in both places invoke the moon. The juxtapositions in this poem, light and dark, sun and moon, day and night, are demonstrated in the syntax of line 51, juxtaposing \u201cdead of midnight\u201d and \u201cnoon of thought\u201d while playing with the words \u201cmidnight\u201d and \u201cnoon.\u201d These lines also introduce a juxtaposition of the silence and stillness of the night, and the excitement of the soul, with the quiet \u201cw,\u201d \u201cs,\u201d \u201ch,\u201d and \u201cth\u201d sounds in words like \u201cwisdom,\u201d \u201cinward,\u201d and \u201cbeholds,\u201d in contrast with the strong verbs, \u201cmounts,\u201d \u201ccollected,\u201d and \u201cturns.\u201d These lines and the poem in whole praise the capacity of human-beings, and women especially. As a mortal, the speaker\u2019s wisdom can reach the stars. The speaker is able to contain the divine, \u201cAn embryo God\u201d (56) like a mother. The sun being masculine fails to ripen the speaker\u2019s thoughts, but the moon being feminine and usually associated with fertility, stimulates the soul. By observing and immersing herself in nature, the speaker has a sublime experience that elevates her spirit to a self-discovery. Apart from the sublimity, self-discovery, and the solitary hero (heroine in this case), giving humans immortal powers is also a Romantic trope (I\u2019m thinking of Byron\u2019s Manfred<\/em>). The mortal is able to contain and become one with the infinite. The light dies with the sun, but the human soul comes alive. I\u2019m also intrigued by astronomy and the empirical science in the Romantic era and the role of women in science. The speaker is simultaneously turning inward to observe the self and looking outside herself at the universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cA Summer\u2019s Evening\u2019s Meditation\u201d by Anna Laetitia Barbauld This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. At this still hour the self-collected soul Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there Of high descent, and more than mortal rank (51-55) These lines recall \u201cShe mused away the … Continue reading “This dead of midnight is the noon of thought”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}