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.
It now seems that EF
was not the Mrs Fenwick who was running an admirable school at Flint House, Greenwich, just outside London, from at least the later 1780s well into the 1790s...
Travel
Michael Field
Pen was the son of the late Elizabeth
and Robert Browning
and Sarinna the sister of Robert. Always prone to ill-health, Edith came down with a fever at the start of the visit.
Field, Michael, and William Rothenstein. Works and Days. Editors Moore, Thomas Sturge and D. C. Sturge Moore, J. Murray.
203
Intertextuality and Influence
Michael Field
Her choice of pen name was probably inspired by the island of Arran in the Firth of Clyde and by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
's extremely popular verse novel Aurora Leigh.
Blain, Virginia, editor. Victorian Women Poets: A New Annotated Anthology. Longman.
208
The original minnesinger...
Friends, Associates
Michael Field
This first letter from Browning came in reply to one sent by Edith. The women called on him for the first time in June 1885. They visited the old poet
Field, Michael, and William Rothenstein. Works and Days. Editors Moore, Thomas Sturge and D. C. Sturge Moore, J. Murray.
Despite a somewhat reclusive life both before and after his separation from his wife within a year of their marriage, he was well connected with the Victorian literary scene, and expressed strong opinions on women...
Textual Production
Margaret Forster
MF
published a life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(the first in thirty years), which addresses the poet's responses to the nineteenth century's crushingly male, and her own limitingly middle-class, culture.
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.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
271
Textual Production
Margaret Forster
MF
published a biographical novel, Lady's Maid, whose protagonist, Elizabeth Wilson
, was the personal maid of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
155
Intertextuality and Influence
Margaret Forster
Insofar as this novel tells the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
through a previously disregarded witness, it invites comparison with Woolf
's Flush. But for Forster this is a side-issue. More important is endowing...
Intertextuality and Influence
Pamela Frankau
This novel centres around the family and professional relationships of a man with a will to power: J. G. (or Sir James) Baron, a newspaper magnate. PF
insisted that this character was not based on...
Textual Features
Christina Fraser-Tytler
The book is divided by topic (confession, detachment from the world, guidance in perplexity, union with Christ, etc.). Included are only a few selections from women authors, namely Madame Guyon
, Christina Rossetti
, Caroline Matilda of Denmark
Friends, Associates
Margaret Fuller
Leaving Rome, MF
and her family stopped briefly in Rieti before settling in Florence at the end of September 1849, where they became acquainted with Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
. Despite a great gulf...
Family and Intimate relationships
Margaret Fuller
Of the Fuller-Ossoli marriage, Barrett Browning
(who described first learning of it as a surprise), wrote: the husband is a Roman marquis . . . appearing amiable & gentlemanly, & having fought well, they say...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Margaret Fuller
In her review Miss Barrett
's Poems she praised the English poet's majesty and her poetic vision but noted also her lack of economy and the stiffness of her verse.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
59
She reviewed works by...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Gaskell
EG
adored Rome, and she and her daughters were much sought after there. They met there Harriet Beecher Stowe
and Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(although their visit with the poets was not a success).
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
