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Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
During her lifetime, Mrs. Browning was considered a better poet than
her husband, Robert Browning. Today, her life and personality excite
more interest than her work.
She is widely known for her treatment of social injustice in her poetry.
Her political and personal sympathies touch on such issues as slave and
child labour as well as the repression of women, earning her status as
an early feminist.
She is also well known for her highly individual gift for lyric poetry and
evidence of classical training in her works of poetry.
Although she lived most of her life as a reclusive invalid, she
established and maintained a popularity among critics and the public
that made it clear that no female poet was held in higher esteem
among cultured readers in both the United States and England than
Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the nineteenth century. (Elizabeth
Barrett Browning)
The oldest of twelve children, she is born into a wealthy family and
begins writing poetry as early as 8 years old. (E. B. Browning A
Chronology)
By the time she was ten, she had read the complete works of
Shakespeare, Pope and Milton and had studied the works of prominent
classical writers in their original languages. She had also read the
entire Old Testament in Hebrew.
In 1821, she injures her spine attempting to saddle her horse and
begins taking opium by prescription. She develops a lifelong habit.
Her mother dies in 1828 and not long after, due to financial loss, the
Barretts are forced to move to a more modest home, one of three
moves until the family finally settles at 50 Wimpole Street in London.
Elizabeth bursts a blood vessel in 1837, affecting her lungs. From this,
she develops a chronic cough and coupled with the injury to her spine,
Elizabeth suffers a long period of invalidism.
(Poets
Despite her father having strictly forbidden marriage for any of his
children, Elizabeth and Robert elope in 1846 in London and then move
to Italy where she becomes involved with the cause of political unity.
Her father disinherits her.
Elizabeths health improves greatly and she has a son in 1849 Robert
Weideman Barrett-Browning (Pen).
In 1850, she is mentioned in a literary journal as the leading candidate
to succeed Wordsworth as poet laureate.
In 1857, Elizabeths father dies and Aurora Leigh is published a
novel in verse. It is met with much praise but also draws attacks for
its sympathetic treatment of a woman as independent, an artist, and
an unmarried mother. (E. B. B. A Chronology)
Her health declines in 1860 and she dies the following year in Florence
where she is buried.
2.
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4.
We all know that people fall in love and out of love, but how does it
work while you're in it?
What kinds of love are there, and how and when do they happen?
What if you love someone in many different, conflicting ways? Talk
about some examples with your partner.
These are eternal human questions, and they're the questions
Barrett Browning asks and tries to answer in her sonnet How
do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways.
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Sonnet 43
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Sonnet 43:
Consider This . . .
A Mans Requirements
1.
Differences
4.
5.
Now, take another look at your chart and be specific about these
comparisons and contrasts between the two poems. To do so,
consider the following elements:
Tone
Speaker
Imagery
Structure
Theme
Other??
Works Cited