Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
-
Standard Name: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Birth Name: Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett
Nickname: Ba
Pseudonym: EBB
Married Name: Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Browning
Used Form: E. B. Barrett
Used Form: Elizabeth B. Barrett
Used Form: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
Used Form: E.B.B.
Used Form: E. B. B.
EBB
was recognized in her lifetime as one of the most important poets of mid-Victorian Britain. She wrote a significant corpus of poetry which ranges from the lyric through the closet drama or dramatic lyric and the dramatic monologue to the epic, as well as letters and criticism. For much of the twentieth century, interest in her focused on her romantic life-story, her letters, and Sonnets from the Portuguese. Late in the century, critical interest in her epic female künstlerroman or verse novel Aurora Leigh and her other political poetry—in which she took up the causes of working-class children, the abolition of slavery, women's issues, and the Italian Risorgimento—revived. She is again considered one of the leading and most influential voices of her day.
Crushed by the death of Elizabeth
and holding her memory in the highest regard, RB
seems never to have sought another partner despite being highly sociable and occasionally flirtatious. After her death, he returned to...
Literary responses
Robert Browning
This series was at least the catalyst for the first direct contact between RB
and his future wife, Elizabeth Barrett
, since she praised it in Lady Geraldine's Courtship, which she included in her...
Reception
Robert Browning
Men and Women has been described as Browning's best single volume
Browning, Robert. “Editorial Materials”. Robert Browning’s Poetry: Authoritative Texts, Criticism, edited by James F. Loucks, W. W. Norton, p. various pages.
xii
of verse. He had anticipated the volume title a decade earlier in his second letter to Elizabeth Barrett
, on 13 January 1845...
Dedications
Robert Browning
It was dedicated to the memory of his wife
, with the apostrophe: O lyric Love, half angel and half bird.
Browning, Robert. The Ring and the Book. Editors Collins, Thomas J. and Richard D. Altick, Broadview.
57
Volumes 1 and 2 were published in 1868; the final volume, number 4...
Cultural formation
Robert Browning
RB
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
participated in a séance with D. D. Home
.
Porter, Katherine H. Through a Glass Darkly: Spiritualism in the Browning Circle. Octagon.
47
death
Jessie Ellen Cadell
She was buried, says Richard Garnett, in the cemetery
which holds the remains of Mrs. Browning
and Landor
and Theodore Parker
and so many other gifted men and women of English race.
Garnett, Richard et al. “Introduction”. The Ruba’yat of Omar Khayam, edited by Richard Garnett, translated by. Jessie Ellen Cadell, John Lane, p. v - xxx.
One of the many novels which RNC
chose to dignify by quotations to head her chapters, this seems to make a particular attempt to impress. Those quoted imply considerable learning, even if (as seems likely)...
Intertextuality and Influence
Rosa Nouchette Carey
In an interview of 1893, Helen C. Black
described RNC
as tall, slender, and erect with large blue-grey eyes with long lashes,soft dark hair, and a low, tuneful voice.
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. Maclaren.
147-8
Carey revealed in this...
Intertextuality and Influence
Laura Ormiston Chant
The volume's shorter independent pieces include sonnets. The 70-page Verona, about 1,600 lines of pentameter blank verse, treats the conflict between the title character and her fiancé, Adrian, over her commitment to raising personally...
Friends, Associates
Caroline Clive
CC
remained a close friend of her early passion Catherine Gore
.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
She was also acquainted with Mary Russell Mitford
, whom she described as priggy,
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
FPC
's connections from home gave her introductions into the circles of US and British women living in Italy, including Harriet Hosmer
(who became a close friend). She met Elizabeth Barrett
and Robert Browning
...
Intertextuality and Influence
Frances Power Cobbe
In treating the need for other pursuits for spinsters and widows she touches on the topical subjects of religious sisterhoods, female doctors, higher education for women, female philanthropists such as Maria Rye
, and feminist...
Textual Production
Frances Power Cobbe
It contains much statistical and economic information, as well as considerable analysis of the complex political situation and a chapter on visitors and expatriates in Italy, including a description of FPC
's impression of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Intertextuality and Influence
Sara Coleridge
Phantasmion is a bildungsroman set in a fictional, somewhat oriental land, is packed with supernatural machinery
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, and Sara Coleridge. Sara Coleridge, a Victorian Daughter: Her Life and Essays. Yale University Press.
95
and with adventure. The substantial and detailed narrative follows a young aristocratic boy from youth to adulthood, emphasizing...