Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6, 1806 – June 29, 1861) was a member of the Barrett family and one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era.
Biography
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett) was born at Cohnadatia Hall (now demolished) near Durham, England in 1806, the daughter of Creole plantation owner Edward Moulton-Barrett, who assumed the last name "Barrett" on succeeding to the estates of his grandfather in Jamaica. She was christened in Kelloe church, where a plaque describes her as 'a great poetess, a noble woman, a devoted wife'. Her mother was Mary Graham-Clarke of a wealthy family of Newcastle upon Tyne. She is one of the descendents of King Edward III of England. [1]
Elizabeth spent her youth at Hope End, near Great Malvern. While still a child she showed her gift, and her father published 50 copies of a juvenile epic, on the Battle of Marathon. She was educated at home, but owed her profound knowledge of the Greek language and much mental stimulus to her early friendship with the blind scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who was a neighbour.
In her early teens, Elizabeth contracted a lung complaint, possibly tuberculosis, although the exact nature has been the subject of much speculation, and was treated as an invalid by her parents. For a girl of that time, she was well-educated, having been allowed to attend lessons with her brother's tutor. She published her first poem, anonymously, at the age of fourteen. In 1826 she published anonymously An Essay on Mind and Other Poems.
Shortly afterwards, the abolition of slavery, of which she was a supporter (see her work The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1849)), considerably reduced Mr. Barrett's means. He accordingly disposed of his estate and moved with his family first to Sidmouth and afterwards to London. At the former location Miss Barrett wrote Prometheus Bound (1835). After her move to London she fell into delicate health, her lungs being threatened. This did not, however, interfere with her literary labours, and she contributed to various periodicals "The Romaunt of Margaret", "The Romaunt of the Page", "The Poet's Vow", and other pieces. In 1838 appeared The Seraphim and Other Poems (including "Cowper's Grave").
Shortly thereafter, the death of her favorite brother gave a serious shock to her already fragile health; and for a time she hovered between life and death. Eventually, however, she regained strength, and meanwhile her fame was growing. The publishing about 1841 of "The Cry of the Children" gave it a great impulse, and about the same time she contributed some critical papers in prose to Richard Henry Horne's New Spirit of the Age. In 1844 she published two volumes of Poems, which comprised "The Drama of Exile", "Vision of Poets", and "Lady Geraldine's Courtship".
In 1845 she met for the first time her future husband, Robert Browning. Their courtship and marriage, owing to her delicate health and the extraordinary objections entertained by Mr. Barrett to the marriage of any of his children, were carried out under somewhat peculiar and romantic circumstances. After a private marriage and a secret departure from her home, she accompanied her husband to the Italian Peninsula, which became her home almost continuously until her death, and with the political aspirations of which she and her husband both thoroughly identified themselves.
The union proved one of unalloyed happiness to both, though it was never forgiven by Mr. Barrett. In her new circumstances her strength greatly increased. The Brownings settled in Florence, and there she wrote Casa Guidi Windows (1851)—by many considered her strongest work—under the inspiration of the Tuscan struggle for liberty. In Florence she became close friend of British-born poets Isabella Blagden and Theodosia Trollope Garrow.
Aurora Leigh, her largest, and perhaps the most popular of her longer poems, appeared in 1856. In 1850 The Sonnets from the Portuguese—the history of her own love-story, thinly disguised by its title—had appeared. In 1860 she issued a collected edition of her poems under the title, Poems before Congress. Soon thereafter her health underwent a change for the worse; she gradually lost strength, and died on June 29, 1861. She is buried in Florence in the English Cemetery, Florence.
Literary significance
Browning is generally considered the greatest of English poetesses. Her works are full of tender and delicate, but also of strong and deep, thought. Her own sufferings, combined with her moral and intellectual strength, made her the champion of the suffering and oppressed wherever she found them. Her gift was essentially lyrical, though much of her work was not so in form. Her weak points are the lack of compression, an occasional somewhat obtrusive mannerism, and frequent failure both in metre and rhyme. Though not nearly the equal of her husband in force of intellect and the higher qualities of the poet, her works had, as might be expected on a comparison of their respective subjects and styles, a much earlier and wider acceptance with the general public. Mrs. Browning was a woman of singular nobility and charm, and though not beautiful, was remarkably attractive. Mary Russell Mitford thus describes her as a young woman: "A slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face; large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam." Anne Thackeray Ritchie described her as: "Very small and brown" with big, exotic eyes and an overgenerous mouth.
Her most famous work is Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of love sonnets written by Browning but disguised as a translation. By far the most famous poem from this collection, with one of the most famous opening lines in the English language, is number 43:
- How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
- I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
- My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
- For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
- I love thee to the level of everyday's
- Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
- I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
- I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
- I love thee with the passion put to use
- In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
- I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
- With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
- Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
- I shall but love thee better after death.
But while her Petrarchan Sonnets from the Portughese are exquisite, she was also a prophetic, indeed epic, poet, writing Casa Guidi Windows in support of Italy's Risorgimento, as had Byron supported Greece's liberation from Turkey, and writing Aurora Leigh, in nine books, the woman's number, following the death of Margaret Fuller by drowning in the ship 'Elizabeth', in which Aurora mirrors Margaret and Marian Erle, herself. She sets Aurora Leigh in Florence, England and Paris, using in it her knowledge from childhood of the Bible in Hebrew, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Apuleius, Dante, Langland, Madame de Stael, and George Sand.
The government of Italy and the Commune of Florence celebrated her poetry with commemorative plaques on Casa Guidi, where the Brownings had lived during their 15 year marriage. Lord Leighton designed her tomb in the English Cemetery, its sculpting in Carrara marble being carried out, not faithfully, by Francesco Giovannozzo. In 2006 the Comune of Florence lays a laurel wreath on this tomb to commemorate the 200 years since her birth.
See also
Karlin, Daniel. The courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. (Oxford, 1985) (Critical biography focused on the courtship correspondence.)
Kelley, Philip et al. (Eds.) The Brownings' correspondence. 15 vols. to date. (Wedgestone, 1984-) (Complete letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, so far to 1849.)
Garrett, Martin (Ed.) Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning: Interviews and Recollections (Basingstoke and London, 2000). (Accounts of both poets by themselves and others.)
Garrett, Martin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning (London, 2001). (Biography and discussion of the poetry.)
Woolf, Virginia. Flush: A Biography (Biographical novella written from the perspective of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog, principally of curiosity value.)
External links
- Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning at PoetryFoundation.org
- The Brownings: A Research Guide (Baylor University)
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street at the Internet Movie Database
- Project Gutenberg e-text of Sonnets from the Portuguese
- Works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Project Gutenberg
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning Website
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