When reading Barbauld's "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven" I found the most compelling part to be from line 215 to 240 where Barbauld describes a "Spirit," which she seems to attribute the birth of society to. What I find compelling about this part is not only Barbauld's poetics, but her mission to show that it is the intangible which awoke our spirit as the human race.
I think one of the most compelling lines in this section is when the "human brute" first encounters the spirit and, "He thinks, he reasons, glows with purer fires" (222). What strikes me here is the "purer fires" which the Spirit fosters because the use of "purer" denotes that the Spirit is a refining force, not a cultivating one. Yet, if this is true, how can the Spirit be "Moody and viewless," being both exact in its refinement and chaotic? Barbauld seems to be arguing for a Spirit that is exactly tuned to the human soul, something that is meant to give rise to a human-dominated planet.
And this human-centric mentality is backed up later in the stanza where man not only rises, but "prove[s] his kingdom was not given in vain" (226). So if not for this Spirit, the earth would be wasted? I hope this is part of Barbauld's satire. The earth intended for man, though a view backed by popular religion, seems exactly opposite the man-made bloodshed and destruction Barbauld is arguing against. So maybe this Spirit is the intangible, "moody and viewless" impetus humanity has to conquer, to control, to manipulate their environment. Or I'm misreading Barbauld's satire entirely.
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