Anna Letitia Barbaulds Washing Day Essay -- Washing Day Poem Analysis

Anna Letitia Barbauld's Washing Day In "Washing Day" Anna Letitia Barbauld has done what Romantic poets can do best. She writes of an event that occurs periodically in every-day life, but she elevates the washing day chore to a challenge of epic proportions. Barbauld views the experience of wash day from the perspective of the woman she is and the child she was. At all times she is the poet who relates the Muses' song as a medieval minstrel might. Her skillful use of irony and hyperbole allows this poem to convey to contemporary readers the same humor and insight that an eighteenth-century audience would have appreciated. Â   Barbauld uses classical references and a few archaic words to give the poem an epic feeling. However, since the subject is a rather mundane one, the poem has an ironic mood throughout. The muses of literature and art are now absorbed in the domestic gossip of housewives at work. All the petty subjects of daily life, the delights as well as the annoyances, are replacing the tragedies of the Greek Pantheon. She has the muses trade their bus...