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Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

LINKS

http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=153

This link connects you to the Academy of American Poets. Here you will find an exhibit on Elizabeth Barrett Browning including a biography, online primary texts, criticism, bibliographic information, and additional links.

http://65.107.211.206/victorian/ebb/browningov.html

This link connects you to the Victorian Web entry on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here you will find an extensive archive of primary and secondary works covering Elizabeth Barrett Browning's writings in terms of major themes and patterns of imagery, as well as the political contexts, social movements, and intellectual backgrounds defining her era.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Durham, England, Elizabeth Barrett Browning had an affluent childhood due to the wealth her father accumulated from his sugar plantations in Jamaica. In 1821, she began to suffer from a nervous disorder that was aggravated further by the death of her mother. Browning had a passion for classical learning and taught herself Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament. Hugh Stuart Boyd encouraged her in her studies of Greek authors. Her own major volume of accomplished verse appeared in 1838 under the title The Seraphim and Other Poems. That same year, however, the trauma of her brother Edward's drowning off the coast of Devon left her an invalid and recluse over the following five years. Her next volume simply entitled Poems in 1844 drew the attention of Robert Browning and, although six years younger than Elizabeth and in far better health, he courted her over two years. During this time, she composed the poetry that would later make up her Sonnets from the Portuguese. Following the example of Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin, the couple eloped to Italy in 1846 and three years later became parents of their son Robert in Florence. In 1850, Elizabeth published a second edition of Poems including the Sonnets from the Portuguese. With the death of William Wordsworth that same year, she became a serious contender for the Laureateship that passed, however, to Tennyson. Her publication of the verse-novel Aurora Leigh in 1857 consolidated her popular readership. Toward the end of her life, her political commitment to Italian independence was reflected in Casa Guidi Windows (1851) and Poems before Congress (1860). In 1861, Robert Browning took Elizabeth to the south in an attempt to treat the disease that would take her life that year.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Bloom, Harold, Ed. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002.

Donaldson, Sandra, Ed. Critical Essays on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. New York: G.K. Hall, 1999.

—. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: An Annotated Bibliography of the Commentary and Criticism. New York: G.K. Hall, 1993.

Forster, Margaret. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

Lewis, Linda M. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Spiritual Progress: Face to Face with God. Columbia, MO: Univeristy of Missouri Press, 1998.

Stephenson, Glennis. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Poetry of Love. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989.

Stone, Marjorie. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.

SECONDARY SOURCES BY CHAPTER