Anne Laetitia Barbauld's The Caterpillar

Anne Laetitia Barbauld’s “The Caterpillar” takes on an entirely different tone towards nature. The speaker takes on more of a scientific tone in describing the caterpillar, rather than a philosophical tone as the young boy had in “The Lamb.” She describes its physicality: “Noted the silver line that streaks thy back,/ the azure and the orange that divide thy velvet sides …” (lines 4-6). Barbauld captures an epiphanic moment, not an innocent or tender one. While looking at this caterpillar that has wrapped itself around her finger, she is forced to look at it and admire it and to notice it. The caterpillar makes her “feel and clearly recognize thine individual existence” (line 25). This personal connection saves its life because she now feels

Here, in “The Caterpillar,” Barbauld’s speaker is reaching the realization of nature’s innocence. However, the speaker is more cynical about what nature’s preservation means and stands for. She equates saving the caterpillar to a soldier’s killing mass armies but sparing one “single sufferer” (36). The speaker says that in sparing the life, the hero “is grown human” (line 39). Therefore, she recognizes that humanity means sparing the lives of the less fortunate. However, she concludes her poem with saying “’Tis not Virtue, / Yet ‘tis the weakness of a virtuous mind” (line 43). The speaker does not believe that a virtuous person spares the lives of others, but it is rather the weakest facet of the virtuous mind that allows for the saving of others. Therefore, this speaker has a far more cynical view of the aspects of the natural world than the young boy is. However, this speaker does not appear to be an adolescent; this speaker has been surrounded by a world of war, as Barbauld uses war and violence as a point of reference. The speaker has been tainted by war and urbanization; he or she has not learned to love nature and to view it is the purest essence of the world in the way that the boy has in “The