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With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue Elizabeth
Barrett Browning was such an acclaimed poet in her own lifetime
that she was suggested as a candidate for the Poet Laureateship
when Wordsworth died in 1850. Yet today we have only a limited
knowledge of her considerable life's work as a poet, in part
because of a lack of representative but accessible editions of her
work. Readers will find here not only her well-known sonnet
sequence of love poems, Sonnets From the Portuguese, but also
lesser known sonnets, some in praise of the cross-dressing bohemian
writer George Sand, others to contemporary poets and artists. Her
religious and spiritual poetry echoes that of the Metaphysical
poets. A different voice emerges in her social and political
protest poems, such as `The Cry of the Children' and `The Runaway
Slave at Pilgrim's Point'. Her experimental ballads allowed her to
develop a distinctive way of writing about women within an
apparently conventional form. In the outstanding work of her
maturity, Aurora Leigh, the woman's voice takes centre stage. This
`novel-poem' is full of verve and interest, with a female poet-hero
who casts a caustic eye on life and on her fellow men - and women.
We all think we know the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning - the
mysterious illness which enclosed her in her room, her over-loving
but imperious father, and her romantic, secret marriage to the poet
Robert Browning and their life together in Italy. But this
comprehensive selection of her poetry tells the real story of her
sustained creative life as a poet, which began with her childhood
poetic ambitions and ended only with her death. All the major
aspects of her poetry are represented in this accessible edition
which is well-annotated and contextualised, with a wide-ranging
introduction which covers Barrett Browning's poetic and
intellectual life as well as her personal one. Recent critical
re-readings, including major feminist reassessments, of her poetry
are covered in the introduction, with helpful suggestions for
further reading.
'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways' Elizabeth Barrett
Browning was a poet of passion, wit and conscience. She was also a
woman who wrote to speak the truth about everything she knew - and
she knew just what it was like to be a thinking woman in a society
that wanted women to be weak. The eldest of twelve children, she
wrote poetry from the age of eleven, and became a highly successful
poet in her lifetime - and remains very much loved today. She was
also a strong advocate for human rights, campaigning to abolish
slavery and child labour, and her three-part poem A Curse for a
Nation is a powerful polemic against the slave trade. 'I heard an
angel speak last night, and he said "write! Write a nation's curse
for me, and send it over the western sea" '
In 1847, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) moved with her new
husband to an apartment in Florence, in the wake of perhaps the
most famous literary courtship of the nineteenth century. She soon
took to calling their home the Casa Guidi. From there, she observed
the events of the early Risorgimento. It was at this time that she
produced some of her finest work, including Aurora Leigh and Casa
Guidi Windows. An impressionistic and thoroughly atypical landmark
in the Romantic canon, the latter was written in two parts,
separated by several years. Beginning with the memory of a singing
child and a lush description of Florence's beauty, the first part
explores the air of optimism that permeates both the city and the
narrator. By the second, disillusionment is rife: Florence has
become the scene of demonstrations and broken political promises.
This reissue of the 1851 first edition includes Barrett Browning's
own introduction.
In 1847, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) moved with her new
husband to an apartment in Florence, in the wake of perhaps the
most famous literary courtship of the nineteenth century. She soon
took to calling their home the Casa Guidi. From there, she observed
the events of the early Risorgimento. It was at this time that she
produced some of her finest work, including Aurora Leigh and Casa
Guidi Windows. An impressionistic and thoroughly atypical landmark
in the Romantic canon, the latter was written in two parts,
separated by several years. Beginning with the memory of a singing
child and a lush description of Florence's beauty, the first part
explores the air of optimism that permeates both the city and the
narrator. By the second, disillusionment is rife: Florence has
become the scene of demonstrations and broken political promises.
This reissue of the 1851 first edition includes Barrett Browning's
own introduction.
The text is accompanied by both explanatory annotations and textual
notes. "Backgrounds and Contexts" includes thirty letters or letter
excerpts by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning that
trace Aurora Leigh s inception, evolution, and publication. Seven
contemporary documents on the "woman question," prostitution,
socialism, and poetic theory place the text historically.
"Criticism" collects twenty-five assessments of Aurora Leigh from
the period 1899 1993. A wide range of opinion is provided by George
Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,
Angela Leighton, Deirdre David, Dorothy Mermin, and Margaret
Reynolds, among others. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are
also included."
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) is a collection of sonnets by
English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Written between 1845 and
1846, Sonnets from the Portuguese is a series of love poems written
by Browning to her husband, the prominent Victorian poet Robert
Browning. Although Elizabeth was initially unsure of the poems,
Robert encouraged their publication, suggesting she title them to
make readers believe they were translations and not personal
declarations of love between the couple. Using the sonnet, Browning
adopted a traditional form made famous by Shakespeare while staking
a claim for herself as one of nineteenth century England's premier
poets. Filled with references to the Greek pastoral poet Theocritus
and the tragic figure Electra, as well as invocations to God,
Sonnets from the Portuguese immerses itself in biblical and
classical tradition while remaining deeply personal and
authentically romantic. Sonnet "XV" addresses the inherent tragedy
of love, the depth of sadness with which a lover beholds another
with "Too calm and sad a face," overwhelmed with the knowledge that
with love comes "the end of love, / Hearing oblivion beyond
memory." In sonnet "XXVIII," Browning reflects on the distance
between lovers kept apart: all she has of him are her letters, "all
dead paper, mute and white!" And yet, "they seem alive and
quivering" in her "tremulous hands," a living reminder of the man
she longs to be with. "XLIII," the most famous sonnet of the
collection, begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," and
records the poet's confession of a love more powerful than "the
passion put to use / In [her] old griefs..." Not only has her lover
brought her such joy, he has also given her a love she "seemed to
lose / With [her] lost saints," a love strong enough to transcend
religious faith entirely, a love that is destined to last, and to
be even "better after death." With a beautifully designed cover and
professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese is a classic of
English literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Aurora Leigh (Paperback)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Contributions by Mint Editions
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R428
R362
Discovery Miles 3 620
Save R66 (15%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Aurora Leigh (1856) is an epic poem by English Romantic poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Described by Browning as "a novel in
verse," Aurora Leigh is primarily the story of its titular heroine,
an intelligent woman and ambitious poet whose talent is matched
only by her skill for self-doubt. Although it is narrated in the
first person, the poem also concerns itself with the character
Marian Erle, a woman rescued from a life on the streets by Aurora's
cousin Romney, who loves both women in complex and varying ways.
Recognized as one of the most important poems of the nineteenth
century, Aurora Leigh is notable for its use of the epic
form-traditionally masculine, and concerned with subjects such as
war, history, and the gods-in order to tell a story centered on
talented and uniquely independent women. Born in Florence to a
Tuscan mother and English father, and encouraged from a young age
to study the classics and learn Latin and Greek, Aurora Leigh
develops not only the desire to become a famous poet, but the
talent and intelligence to achieve her dream. What she has in
ambition and skill, however, she lacks in confidence, and, after
moving to England as a teenager, Aurora struggles to make a name
for herself in the competitive literary environment of London.
While in England, she meets her cousin Romney Leigh, a dedicated
and idealistic social worker who dreams of using his inheritance
and family estate-Leigh Hall-to alleviate the suffering of the
lower classes. Aurora Leigh is a dramatic tale of romance involving
Marian Erle, Lady Waldemar-a beautiful aristocrat-and Aurora
herself. As each of these women navigates their relationship with
Romney, and as Romney tries and fails to bring meaningful aid to
the poor, Aurora finds that her art means nothing if she cannot
learn to love herself as much as she loves others. With a
beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh is a
classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
Referring to her olive-skinned complexion Robert Browning called
his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "his little Portuguese." It
is from this nickname that the title "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
is derived. Sonnets from the Portuguese, a series of love poems
from Elizabeth to her husband, is combined here with a collection
of 60 of her other poems.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Thus begins Elizabeth
Barrett Browning's sonnet "XLIII," the penultimate poem in her
collection Sonnets from the Portuguese. Written for her husband
Robert Browning, these sonnets are not only some of the most
formally precise poems in the English language, but among the most
astonishingly beautiful love poems ever written.
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Aurora Leigh (Hardcover)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Created by James Millar
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R943
Discovery Miles 9 430
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Aurora Leigh (Paperback)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Created by James Millar
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R657
Discovery Miles 6 570
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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