Elizabeth Barret Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a plain woman of the Victorian Era that was most remarkably gifted. She "was destined to become known to the world"(Preston xi). Elizabeth Barrett Browning became known for her poetry, because she showed marriages were her women character were often left emotionally unstable.

In her book Recollections, Browning describes what poetry means to herself. She explained that it "became a distinct object with me; an object to read, think, and live for" (Preston xii). Browning was described as a strong woman-poet who had little to no training. She came from the "Italian hills into a prim English feminine household, and inevitably assuming there that attitude of superiority to everything about her which is so contrary to that of true genius" (Oliphant 1). According to L. Roberts Steven of The Critical Survey of Poetry, "Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not think it a kindness when critics praised her as a 'woman poet'"(397). She wanted to be known as a poet.

Browning's main theme to her poetry was love plots, said Schneller editor of British Women Writers. The structure of Browning's poems are unusually "centered on marriages which destroyed the woman involved"(Schneller 104). Browning's women characters were almost always youthful, perverse, and fearless women that when "subdued into marriage", would often take part in a "scandalous affair(s) with a robust lover"(Schneller 104). According to Schneller, the theme of love and marriage caught the eye of many readers, and made her known worldwide (104).

Browning published "The Seraphim and Other Poems" in 1838, and the critic Glenn Everett believed that this collection of poems was "the first volume of Elizabeth's mature poetry"(Everett 1). Many critics agreed that this was the beginning of Browning's road to success. The critic Schneller disagrees with Everett and felt that "Sonnets from the Portuguese", "Casa Guidi Window", "Aurora Leigh", and "Last Poems" "represent(s) the best of Elizabeth Browning's work"(106). The early stages of her poetry are described as "a sinewy and idiosyncratic colloquialism", and the verse of her poem was too "sing-song and "immature"(Leighton 106).

Leighton explains how in "Sonnets from the Portuguese" Browning declares her strong emotions of love toward Robert Browning. This poem led to the marriage of Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning. Leighton describes Browning's expressions as "fulsome and yet witty energy, which flirts and skirmishes with the inherited convection's of the love sonnet" (106). The poem "Casa Guidi Windows" takes place in Italy and Leighton describes it as a "discursive poem" and addresses perfection and let downs of the Italian Risorgimento (106). The political poem shows Browning "at her most passionately cosmopolitan, and as a poet" (Leighton 106). This poem let the critics see that Browning was an accomplished poet. Along with her theme of love Browning showed in "Casa Guidi Windows" the "intractable issues of papal power, British imperialism, and nationalistic mythologizing into a strong and musical poetry" (Leighton 106).

The last great work of Browning's life was the poem "Aurora Leigh". Oliphant believes the most amazing accomplishment in "Aurora Leigh is "it's energy and strong poetically vitality"(1). While Browning was finishing this piece of work she was staying in the house of her cousin, John Kenyon. John Kenyon died a few weeks after Browning dedicated "Aurora Leigh" to him. The death reflected upon the work of "Aurora Leigh"(Preston xvi). Browning also noted at the beginning of "Aurora Leigh" that "the last pages" "have been finished under the hospitality of your [John] roof, my dearest cousin and friend", and many of the qualities of her cousin John can be found in the character of Romney (254).

L. Roberts Stevens criticized "Aurora Leigh" claiming "that romance is plausible but handicapped in an unromantic (that is, an industrial, mercantile) age" (399). Hayter described "Aurora Leigh " as rich in unusual glowing imagery, nature often witty in its comments on contemporary society, compassionate over injustices and the sufferings of the poor"(315). Many of Browning's readers were appalled by the "frank sexual references to prostitution and even rape" (Hayter 315). When Browning wrote her poetry she never let society's opinion hold her thoughts back. If the subject matter were important to her, she would let her voice be heard. Hayter explained that she was "not a prude; she [Browning] thought that social evils were more likely to be abolished by plain speaking about them than by pretending they did not exist" (315). The reader can see many sexual references in "Aurora Leigh" such as this one:

Might feel my love- she was his sister

once-

I clung to her. A moment she seemed

Moved.

Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling (Browning 259).

Preston perceived Browning as "A true child of the romantic age"(xiii),