Anna Letitia Barbauld's ‘A Summer Evening's Meditation’ and the Cosmic Voyage since Paradise Lost

Abstract Anna Barbauld's ‘A Summer Evening's Meditation’ is a late contribution to the cosmic voyage genre of poetry, which had enjoyed popularity during the first half of the eighteenth century. Studying the poem in the context of this literature calls attention to what is innovative about Barbauld's text: most notably, its allusion to Eve in introducing gender struggles to a genre that had been almost exclusively the province of male authors. In defying the cultural boundaries that had constrained the imaginations of female predecessors, Barbauld provides us with the first instance in English literature of a woman exploring modern deep space.