Professional Documents
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Mukherjee
(CW)
Pradhan
Module ID MODULE 13
its literature.
of Elizabeth B Browning
Key words Elizabeth, Browning‟s wife,To George Sand:
In this module we will come to know about great Victorian poet Elizabeth Barret Browning,
her life, and her limitations as a poet, her contribution towards the English poetry and her
poetic style and output. We will also discuss three of her poems in detail viz. To George
Sand: Recognition, To George Sand: A Desire, and The Cry of the Children.
13.1 Introduction
‟Among all women poets of the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century, none was
held in higher critical esteem or was more admired for the independence and courage of her
Elizabeth Barrett Browning alias "Ba" was an English poet of the Romantic Movement.
Popularly known as Mrs. Robert Browning, Elizabeth was best known for her love poems,
Sonnets from the Portuguese and Aurora Leigh. Her volume, Poems (1844) brought her great
success. She was an extraordinary woman who fiercely opposed the slavery on which her
family's fortune was founded, while struggling with lifelong illness. During her lifetime she
was held in higher regard than Browning. She was even tipped to succeed William
dark curly hair, a diminutive figure with an easy smile, and charming to all who met her‟. Her
ill health was not a deterant in writing and in 1838 The Seraphim and Other Poems including
“Cowper‟s Grave” and “The Cry of the Children”, the first of her works to be published
under her own name,established her as a great poetess of her time. It gained critical acclaim
and she started correspondences with many literary figures of the day including Thomas
She inherited a large sum from an uncle, in 1840, after that she travelled to the fashionable
seaside resort of Torquay in southern England to take a rest cure to improve her health.
During her stay over there her beloved brother `Bro‟ who had accompanied her, drowned in
III
IV
Barrett was an avid and voracious reader She had gone through the histories of England,
Greece, and Rome; Othello and The Tempest; part of Pope's Homeric translations; and
passages from Paradise Lost at the age of nine. At eleven she "felt the most ardent desire to
understand the learned languages." She received some instructions in Greek and Latin from a
tutor who lived with the Barrett family for two or three years to help her brother Edward
("Bro"). Barrett was, as Robert Browning later asserted, "self-taught in almost every respect."
Within the next few years she went through the works of the principal Greek and Latin
authors, the Greek Christian fathers, several plays by Racine and Molière, Hebrew and a
portion of Dante‟s Inferno-all in the original languages. She was influenced by the works of
Tom Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mary Wollstonecraft and expressed that through her
At the age of eleven or twelve she composed a verse "epic" in four books of rhyming
couplets, The Battle of Marathon. At the age of twenty Barrett offered to the public, with no
Poems (1826). Critics appreciated it but she called the book "a girl's exercise, nothing more
nor less!— " How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43), written during her courtship with Robert
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton, the daughter of Mary Graham Clarke (d.1828) and Edward
Moulton Barrett (d.1857) was the oldest of twelve children. She was born on 6 March 1806 at
Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, England. Elizabeth lived a lavish life-style with her parents.
Her father had a great wealth from his Jamaican sugar plantations. Three years after Elizabeth
was born, he bought the 500 acre estate `Hope End‟ in Hertfordshire.
Two years later, Elizabeth developed a lung ailment that plagued her for the rest of her life.
Doctors began treating her with morphine, which she would take until her death. When she
was fifteen, Elizabeth also suffered a spinal injury while saddling a pony. Despite her
ailments, her education continued. Elizabeth taught herself Hebrew so that she could read the
Old Testament; her interests later turned to Greek studies and The Bible. In 1826, Elizabeth
anonymously published her collection An Essay on Mind and Other Poems. Two years later,
In 1832, Elizabeth‟s father sold his rural estate at a public auction and settled permanently in
London. Then Elizabeth published her translation of Prometheus Bound (1833), by the Greek
dramatist Aeschylus.
Elizabeth was shattered emotionally and physically by the death of her brother and great
patriot Count Cavour on 6 June 1861.”I can scarcely command voice or hand to
name Cavour," Elizabeth wrote; "if tears or blood could have saved him to us, he should have
had mine." Then on 20 June she was confined to bed, stricken with a severe cold, cough, and
sore throat. She died in her dear husband Browning's arms early in the morning of 29 June.
13.3 Robert Browning and E B Browning
After the death of Elizabeth in 1861, Browning left Florence with his son within a month. She
was so loved by her husband that he could not bear her separation and went to London and
settled there.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning seems, despite some difficulties, to have enjoyed a very happy
relationship with her husband, Robert Browning. According to Kathleen Blake, Robert
Browning was practically "a one-man refutation of virtually all of her anxieties."
Browning was a helpful critic from the beginning, for instance, from his earliest letter
commenting on her translation of Prometheus Bound. But E.B.B. was not easily influenced
and often stood up for her originality even when people thought it amounted to eccentricity,
as they more than once did. On her controversial Poems before Congress she says, "I never
wrote to please any of you, not even to please my own husband". She did not emulate
Browning directly because she thought she shouldn't and because she thought she couldn't
anyway. As Susan Zimmerman has shown, the Sonnets differ from the traditional sonnet
sequence in praising the beloved — Browning — as a singer far beyond the speaker in power
— he is a "gracious singer of high poems", while she is a worn-out viol (IV; XXXII).
The courtship and marriage between Robert Browning and Elizabeth B Browning were
carried out secretly, for fear of her father's disapproval. Later her fear proved true and she
was disinherited by her father and rejected by her brothers. The couple moved to Italy in
1846, where she would live for the rest of her life. They had one son, Robert Barrett
During the years of her marriage to Robert Browning, her literary reputation far surpassed
that of her poet-husband; when visitors came to their home in Florence, she was invariably
the greater attraction. The two volumes found their way into the home of Robert Browning.
Browning in January 1845 wrote a letter which began, "I love your verses with all my heart,
dear Miss Barrett." When Browning wrote that first of the many letters that were to be
exchanged between the two poets, Barrett had already won an admiring public and was
maintaining an extensive correspondence with writers and artists in England and the United
States. Browning, on the other hand, was bitterly discouraged because his poetical career was
not prospering and his productions on the London stage had proved to be hopeless failures.
Six years younger than Barrett, he had abundant energy and good health, dressed as a young
man of fashion, and enjoyed going to dinners and receptions where he conversed with many
of the leading figures of the literary world. For almost all of his life he had been living at
home with his parents and his sister—all three of whom adored him—and was financially
dependent upon his father, since none of his volumes of verse had repaid the expenses of
publication.
The courtship progressed despite the objections of Mr. Barrett, who wished his children to
remain totally dependent on him. During the period of the exchange of letters and of
Browning's visits to her room, she was composing the poems, that we today know as
When Browning proposed her, she instantly reacted that „they must remain no more than
friends because of the disparities in health and age. Marriage, she says, would place a severe
burden upon him, for the care of an invalid wife six years older than he would necessarily
take him away from the varied social life he has been enjoying.‟ She apprehended that his
love for her will fade away quickly and will be replaced by pity.This and many more such
questions were of no avail as her lover's eyes spoke much more to remove her doubts as well
as her hesitation to accept this relationship.Perhaps her response is in her sonnet of the cycle,
On 12 September 1846, they got married secretly at St. Marylebone Parish Church. Soon, the
couple left for Italy for a warmer climate but after one winter they moved to Florence, where
Elizabeth's lived throughout her life. She gave birth to her only child in 1849- and was named
young poets‟ suffered due to her poor health (weakness of her lungs).
3.Inspite of the „depth of her intellect, the earnestness of her thought, and the "pathetic
beauty" of the romantic ballads‟ Mrs. Browning's poetry still retained some of the
deficiencies of her earlier books, such as diffuseness, obscure language, and inappropriate
imagery.
4. Though she was quite favourite of fellow poets and common people, yet professional
reviewers did not like her works. Their charge was because of her poems being too long and
weak in characterization.
8. Vulgar material, coarseness of its language made her works "almost a closed volume for
Despite its shortcomings the poem gave evidence of its author's vigorous intellect, her
high place in English literature.She did not like when critics praised her as a “woman poet‟‟
as she prized learning. By 1850 (at the time of Wordsworth's death,) she was conspicuously
declared as a possible successor to the poet laureateship because of her humane and liberal
point of view.
In her writings she was passionately outspoken on issues of social injustice like slavery, child
labor, and oppression of women. Her influence on Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf was
great.
„‟From the time when she had first become acquainted with Mrs. Browning's writings,
Dickinson had ecstatically admired her as a poet and had virtually idolized her as a woman
women poets of the English-speaking world in the nineteenth century, none was held in
higher critical esteem or was more admired for the independence and courage of her views
Very talented Elizabeth wrote forty-four sonnets in her notebook so secretly that even her
husband could come to know about them after three years of her marriage in 1849. He was so
impressed with the beauty and technique of the sonnets that he insisted on their appearing in
her forthcoming new edition of Poems (1850). In order to avoid any visible connection with
their lives, the Brownings selected the ambiguous title "Sonnets from the Portuguese,"The
sonnets gradually gained reception by the critics and made her famous as a poet.Besides the
"Sonnets from the Portuguese," the retranslation of Prometheus Bound was another
without being too concerned with formal rules and details and was explained and expressed
in lively English.About it she said; it was the romance she had been "hankering after so long,
written in blank verse, in the autobiographical form." Named after the heroine of the
poem, Aurora Leigh was published in 1857. In the dedication to her lifelong friend and
benefactor John Kenyon she wrote that it was "the most mature of my works, and the one into
which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered." None of Mrs. Browning's
poems has received more attention from feminist critics than Aurora Leigh, since its theme is
one that especially concerns them: the difficulties that a woman must overcome if she is to
She wrote profusely between 1841 and 1844, including prose, poetry and translation .Her
abundant output made her a competitor to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate after
William Wordsworth died. Within three years after her return to Wimpole Street she had
many new poems in manuscript and others already published in journals, and she believed
that the time was ripe for their appearance in book form—the first since The Seraphim and
Other Poems of 1838. The critical reception of her Poems, published in two volumes in 1844,
was such that the author was no longer merely a promising young poet but had suddenly
Her frank treatment stimulated controversy of the plight of "the fallen woman", because
standards of sexual conduct were so rigid that any unmarried mother (even victim of sexual
agression) was shunned by society. One of Mrs. Browning's most fundamental convictions
was that sexual activity outside of marriage was immoral, but she believed that society should
be more compassionate in its treatment of women who had been victims of seduction or
sexual attacks. That may be the reason that women readers were stunned by the story of
Marian Erle of Aurora Leigh. While on the other hand Swinburne, Leigh Hunt, Walter
Savage Landor, Ruskin, and the Rossetti brothers all praised it openly for its merit. „‟From a
commercial point of view it proved to be by far the most successful of Mrs. Browning's
works; by 1885, twenty-eight years after its first publication, it had gone through nineteen
editions.‟‟(wiki)
Elizabeth tdevoted herself to reading English and French fiction and memoirs and to writing
letters, essays, and poetry. She was a private person and only two visitors besides her family
could see her in her room: John Kenyon, a minor poet and the well-known writer Mary
Russell Mitford.
Mrs. Browning experimented a lot with the sonnet. Her twenty-eight sonnets on various
subjects were Italian in form (divided between an octet and a sestet), and in all cases the first
eight lines rhyme abba abba. In the last six lines, however, Mrs. Browning used two different
patterns. Some of the poems end with a cdcdcd pattern; others end cdecde. Elizabeth
„occasionally restricts herself to four rhyme values in a single sonnet—abcd.‟ This practice
imposes on her vocabulary even stricter limits than those imposed by either the Petrarchan or
the Shakespearean form. „Furthermore, the sonnets—some about grief, tears, and work, with
The well-known critic John Wilson ("Christopher North") declared that there was beauty in
The poem that found least favor with the critics was "A Drama of Exile."
The many journals, which reported Mrs. Browning‟s untimely death, spoke of her as the
The highly respected Edinburgh Review expressed the prevailing view when it said that she
had no equal in the literary history of any country: "Such a combination of the finest genius
and the choicest results of cultivation and wide-ranging studies have never been seen before
in any woman."
In America the most extravagant of the obituary notices appeared in the Southern Literary
Messenger, which called her "the Shakespeare among her sex" and placed her among the four
A year after her death Browning collected and arranged for publication her Last Poems,
which included a number of translations from Greek and Latin poetry, personal lyrics, and
poems on Italian politics. In the same year the fifth edition of her Poems was published. Both
works were warmly received by the leading literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic as
A writer in the Christian Examiner of Boston said that Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) and
Mrs. Browning' Aurora Leigh were the two greatest poems of the age and that the "Sonnets
In 1930, however, Virginia Woolf in an article in the Times Literary Supplement deplored the
fact that Mrs. Browning's poetry was no longer being read and especially that Aurora
Leigh had been forgotten. She urged her readers to take a fresh look at the poem, which she
admired for its "speed and energy, forthrightness and complete self-confidence."
In her Literary Women Ellen Moers writes that Aurora Leigh is the great epic poem of the
age; it is "the epic poem of the literary woman herself." It now looks as though Mrs.
Browning's literary reputation will remain secure with future critics who view her work from
a feminist perspective.
In Victorian society, the ideal women had just two roles: marriage and procreation. In
Victorian England Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one such educated woman who exercised
her writing capabilities to come out of enslavement. Through her poem Aurora Leigh,
Barrett Browning addresses the opposing prospects on women saying, “am I proved too
weak/ to stand alone, yet strong enough to bear/ such leaners on my shoulder? Poor to
George Sand was a writer who held her head high beside Victor Hugo and marveled at the
intellect, style, eloquence and passion in all the novels. Although Elizabeth Browning
practically venerated George Sand and held her in high regard for competing so beautifully in
the literary world, she remembers in her poem To George Sand:A Recognition that women
man‟s name. If George Sand is programmed as Mill suggests, to think her characteristics as a
woman are opposite a man‟s, then changing her name and doing a male‟s vocation could be
the beginning of denying all of her female characteristics. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
challenges women to be proud of what they are good at, passion and emotion, while at the
Morlier argues that through the use of the word "unsex" "Barrett addressed a cliche in
antifeminist journalism" as well as the comment made by the American journalists. Barrett
Browning redefines this word in her sonnet. In the poem the word takes on a positive,
Morlier argues that "To George Sand: A Recognition" contains allusions to the Samson and
Delilah story of the Bible and even Milton's version. She explains how Milton and other
. In her poem of recognition, Elizabeth Barrett suggests that although a woman can appear to
deny her womanhood with “manly scorn”, she will always be a woman (Thomson 208).
- Elizabeth Barrett tries to celebrate the successes of George Sand yet remind her that female
Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes her idol George Sand as “True genius, but true
woman!” in her poem To George Sand: A Recognition. Elizabeth Barrett considered George
Sand a “brilliant monstrous woman” and considered her not only a genius but the only
woman she knew of “who was not inferior to men” (Thomson 215). She could relate to
George Sand in many ways, both being warm and emotional and radical and moderately
feminist at the same time (208). George Sand considered herself to be a poet before a
reformer and it was this quality that Elizabeth Barrett, her “English admirer held on to”
(208).
The theme of this poem appears similar to E B Browning‟s “To George Sand: A desire”. It
expresses the same aspect of George Sand breaking through the gender barrier and becoming
a successful female author. However, “To George Sand: A Recognition” uses a much more
dramatic tone and really brings to light how much of a battle it was for George Sand to have
such a career. It expresses the agony that Sand as well as other women had to go through to
be respected in a male dominated field. She also uses vivid imagery to express the triumph of
One may assume that George Sand was a powerful motivating feminist figure. Although she
was just that, she went about her work very lady like, without ever causing a stir or
controversy and writing all romance novels. Her feminine style in such a male dominated era
In To George Sand: A Recognition, Elizabeth Barrett says a woman‟s rejection of her nature
is a “vain denial”. She seems to be scolding George Sand in saying, “thy woman‟s hair, my
sister, all unshorn/ Floats back disheveled strength in agony, / Disprovingthy man‟s name”.
13.12: To George Sand: A Desire: The poem and its Critique
To George Sand: A Desire is a companion poem with To George Sand: A Recognition In the
first poem of desire, Elizabeth Barrett uses George Sand‟s example to tell women to follow
"To George Sand: A Desire" is unique in its compliment of the author George Sand. George
Sand was considered to be one of the grandmothers in female French poetry by Elizabeth
Browning. Browning utilizes her tribute to glorify the remarkable feat Sand accomplished as
a woman struggling to break through in a man's world. In this piece Browning explores the
boundaries of the sexes and the walls established in the literary world built to keep women
"A Desire" opens with a wonderfully powerful tribute to Sand and in depth look into the sex
roles with the statement "Thou large-brained woman and large hearted man."
In this line Browning compliments George Sand's amalgamation of intellect and sensitivity in
her writings. Further Browning also explores the roles of both sexes in the adjectives she
contributes to each sex. In fact this opening line appears as a contrast, after all intellect is
associated with women and sensitivity with men. It is no surprise that even at that time
women were associated with emotion and men with intellect. Browning disproves this
misconception and proclaims that both men and women can be intellectual as well as
emotional. The remainder on the first line in this piece draws attention to Sand's gender
identity with "Self-called George Sand." After all George Sand is the creation of Aurore
Dupin (George Sand's real name) a female author who was willing to publish under a man's
In the twelfth line of the same poem, Barrett Browning describes Sand as a "pure genius
sanctified from blame." The use of the word "sanctified" here may be a response to Mazzini's
The last line of the piece sanctifies Sand as a genius and even more importantly as a female
author with a voice, which will be appreciated by readers and writers to come.
and family in 1831, a practice uncommon and looked down upon. She changed her name
from Aurore Dudevant to George Sand, wore men's clothes, and had numerous love affairs
with such prominent figures. French and English critics alike constantly attacked her work.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning responded to such criticism in her "To George Sand" sonnets.
Just notice that man would be described as being “large-brained” and the woman as “large-
hearted.” Barrett switches characteristics typically assigned to specific genders during the
1800s. “Self-called George Sand” refers to Sand using a pen name rather than her real name,
as spirits can
Sand stands in the middle or a “circus” as lions roar at her, the “lions” being Sand‟s audience
and specifically critics of female writers. Sand stands up against the lions in “defiance” but
only “as spirits can”, meaning that she does so for as long as she can; how long can someone
fly above the crowd and rise as a respected author. White wings also have the connotations of
Unlike humans bound to Earth, angels are not restricted by their gender; they are the entire
equal in the eyes of God. Like “angels”, “sanctified” has biblical connotations as well. What
Barrett is saying in this line is that all humans, whether male or female, should be free from
Margaret Morlier writes that "Sand was singled out [by the Victorian press] as dangerous for
female readers, in particular, because of 'impassioned rhetoric and sensual ideas' along with a
scandalous reputation.'"
1. Barrett dedicated this poem to George Sand because she admired that Sand could
accomplish so much, despite being a woman in a man‟s world. In this poem.
2. Barrett examines the unfair roles given to men and women and questions their need
in a world holding talent by a woman like Sand.
also of her work in general. It contains themes and images that can be found throughout her
work. The use of language, meter, and rhyme in the poem demonstrates her innovative
The Cry of the Children is the poet's look at the lives of children working in mines and
factories, and a moving condemnation of child labour. "Even though Barrett was a bookish,
sheltered, upper middle-class unmarried woman far removed from the scenes she was
describing, she gives evidence here of her passionate concern for human rights," says the
Poetry Foundation.
The Cry Of the Children, published in 1842 talks about child labour and questions adults if
they would have also preferred to be in the similar situation. It had its roots when Elizabeth
heard the cries of little children who were forced to work in mines and factories.The poet
talks about the religion and untimely death of the children without medication. Poem lays
bare the real agony of the deprived children who could not even get a proper burial. She
compares children with tender roots that require due attention and proper care. The image of
It is problematic that Barrett Browning actually heard the cry of the children whom she so
eloquently laments in her poem. She wrote The Cry of the Children after reading a report on
the employment of children in mines and factories. A master of language, she evokes its
emotional power to engender a response of outrage in her readers. The poem is intentionally
alienation and abhorrence of industrial society seen through the eyes and feelings of factory
children, represented as innocence betrayed and used by political and economic interests for
selfish purposes.
Throughout the poem, demonic images of a Factory Hell are contrasted with the Heaven of
the English countryside, the inferno of industrialism with the bliss of a land-based society.
The children are implored to leave the mine and city for the serenity of meadow and country.
The grinding, droning mechanism of industrial society destroys the promise and hope of
human life. Barrett Browning was concerned with the fate of a society that exploited human
Cry of the children was praised for both its content and its unique style. Poet effectively
portrays and gives a word picture of her thoughts regarding disappointment with authorities
in the case of children working in the slum or factories.The poem starts with the speaker
asking the children to go and indulge in playful things, but to her surprise, children indicate
unwillingness. The poet ironically projects the idea of „disillusionment which occurs as a
Summary of the poem: Thus truly it became one of the best-known of all her works. After
going through the reports from the parliamentary commissioners of the terrible conditions of
children's employment in mines, trades, and manufactures, she tells of the hopeless lives of
the boys and girls who are the victims of capitalist exploitation. She gives evidence here of
her passionate concern for human rights. The critics reviewing Poems praised her for her
intellectual power, originality, and boldness of thought; but most agreed that her weakness
In the 1830s Elizabeth's cousin John Kenyon introduced her to prominent literary
figures of the day such as William Wordsworth, Mary Russell Mitford , Samuel
Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on
Living at Wimpole Street, in London, she wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844,
A framed portrait of Mrs. Browning was hung in the bedroom of Emily Dickinson,
Poems (1844)
Prose
“Queen Annelida and False Arcite;" “The Complaint of Annelida to False Arcite," (1841)
Letters to Robert Browning and Other Correspondents by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1916)
The Unpublished Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford (1954)
Diary by E. B. B.: The Unpublished Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1831-1832 (1969)
The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1845-1846 (1969)
Anthology