Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6, 1806 –
June 29, 1861) was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era.
Biography
Sarah Barrett Moulton: “Pinkie” by
Thomas Lawrence. Oil on canvas, 57½"
x 39¼" (146 x 100 cm).
Elizabeth spent her youth at Hope End near Great Malvern, England. The Barrett family had amassed a considerable fortune from the Jamaican sugar plantations inherited by
her father, Edward Moulton Barrett, who was born there. The Barretts had been associated with Jamaica for generations. As a boy
he emigrated to England with his brother and sister (she is the subject of the painting "Pinkie" in the Huntington
Museum). He and his wife, Mary Graham-Clarke, were parents of twelve children (Elizabeth was the eldest). Elizabeth was
educated at home, but owed in part her profound knowledge of the Greek language to her
early friendship with the blind scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who was a neighbor. She attended lessons with her brother's tutor and
was thus well-educated for a girl of that time. At Boyd's suggestion, she translated Aeschylus's "Prometheus Bound" (published in 1833; retranslated in
1850).
In her early teens, Elizabeth contracted a lung complaint, possibly tuberculosis,
although the exact nature of her illness has been the subject of speculation. She was subsequently regarded as an invalid by her
family. The first poem we have a record of is from the age of six or eight (the manuscript is in the Berg Collection of the New
York Public Library; the date is in question because the 2 in the date 1812 is written over something else that is scratched
out). A long Homeric poem titled "The Battle of Marathon" was published when she was fourteen, her
father underwriting its cost. In 1826 she published her first collection of poems, "An Essay on Mind and Other Poems."
The abolition of slavery, a cause which she supported (see her work The Runaway Slave at
Pilgrim's Point (1849)), considerably reduced Mr. Barrett's means. He sold his estate and moved with his family first to
Sidmouth and afterwards to London. After the move
to London, she continued to write, contributing to various periodicals "The Romaunt of Margaret", "The Romaunt of the Page", "The
Poet's Vow", and other pieces, and corresponded with literary figures of the time, including Mary Russell Mitford. In 1838 appeared The Seraphim and Other Poems (including "Cowper's
Grave").
The death of her brother, Edward (who drowned in a sailing accident at Torquay), in 1840 had a serious effect on her already
fragile health; and for several years she rarely left her bedroom. Eventually, however, she regained strength, and meanwhile her
fame was growing. The publishing about 1841 of "The Cry of the Children" gave it a great impulse, and about the same time she
contributed some critical papers in prose to Richard Henry Horne's New Spirit of
the Age. In 1844 she published two volumes of Poems, which included "A Drama of Exile", "Vision of Poets", and "Lady
Geraldine's Courtship".
In 1845 she met for the first time her future husband, Robert Browning, who had
written to her after the publication of her Poems. Their courtship and marriage, owing to her delicate health and the
extraordinary objections made by Mr. Barrett to the marriage of any of his children, were carried out secretly. After a private
marriage at St Marylebone Parish Church, she accompanied her husband to the
Italian Peninsula, which became her home almost continuously until her death.
The union proved a happy one. In her new circumstances Elizabeth's strength greatly increased, and she gave birth to a son,
Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, called "Pen," at the age of 43. The Brownings settled in Florence, and there she wrote Casa Guidi Windows (1851) — considered by many to be her strongest work —
under the inspiration of the Tuscan struggle for liberty, with which she and her husband were in sympathy. In Florence she became
close friend of British-born poets Isabella Blagden and Theodosia Trollope Garrow.
Aurora Leigh, her most ambitious, and perhaps the most popular of her longer
poems, appeared in 1856.
Among Browning's best known lyrics is Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) - the 'Portuguese' being her husband's petname for
dark-haired Elizabeth, but it could refer to the series of sonnets of the 16th-century Portuguese poet Luis de Camões. Which is probable, because in all these poems she used rhymes schemes typical of the
Portuguese sonnets. In 1860 she issued a small volume of political poems titled Poems before Congress. Her health
underwent a change for the worse; she gradually lost strength, and died on June 29,
1861. She is buried in Florence in the English
Cemetery, Florence.
Mrs. Browning was a woman of singular nobility and charm. Mary Russell Mitford
thus describes her as a young woman: "A slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most
expressive face; large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam." Anne
Thackeray Ritchie described her as: "Very small and brown" with big, exotic eyes and an overgenerous mouth.
Literary significance
Barrett Browning is generally considered one of the great English poets. Her works address a wide range of issues and ideas;
she was learned and thoughtful, influencing many of her contemporaries, including Robert
Browning. Her own sufferings, combined with her moral and intellectual strength, made her the champion of the suffering
and oppressed. Her gift was essentially lyrical, though much of her work was not so in form. Her weak points are the lack of
compression, an occasional somewhat obtrusive mannerism, and experimentation both in metre and rhyme.
Her most famous work is Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection
of love sonnets disguised as a translation. By far the most famous poem from this collection, with one of the most famous opening
lines in the English language, is number 43:
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
- I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
- My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
- For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
- I love thee to the level of everyday's
- Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
- I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
- I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
- I love thee with the passion put to use
- In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
- I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
- With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
- Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
- I shall but love thee better after death.
But while her Petrarchan Sonnets from the Portuguese are exquisite, she was also a prophetic, indeed epic, poet,
writing Casa Guidi Windows in support of Italy's Risorgimento, as had Byron supported Greece's liberation from Turkey, and
writing Aurora Leigh, in nine books. She sets Aurora Leigh in Florence, England and Paris, using in it her knowledge from childhood of the Bible in
Hebrew, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Apuleius, Dante,
Langland, Madame de Stael, and
George Sand.
The government of Italy and the Commune of Florence celebrated her poetry with commemorative plaques on Casa Guidi, where the Brownings had lived during their 15 year marriage. Lord Leighton designed her tomb in the English Cemetery, its sculpting in Carrara
marble being carried out, not faithfully, by Francesco Giovannozzo. In 2006 the Comune of
Florence laid a laurel wreath on this tomb to mark 200 years since her birth.
In Popular Culture
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's father is mentioned in Sleeping Murder by
Agatha Christie as "Mr. Barrett of Wimpole Street".
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was mentioned in an episode of Life with Derek when Casey
and Kendra were working on a poetry project together.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was also the name of Diane's cat who passed away in an episode of Cheers
See also
Avery, Simon, and Rebecca Stott. "Elizabeth Barrett Browning." (Longmans, 2005) (Critical study of the poet's life and
works.)
Barrett, R.A. "The Barretts of Jamaica: The Family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning." (Wedgestone, 2000). (Account of the lives
of the descendants of Hercie Barrett, from 1655; with extensive genealogy.)
Donaldson, Sandra. "Critical Essays on Elizabeth Barrett Browning." (G.K. Hall, 1999)
_____. "Elizabeth Barrett Browning: An Annotated Bibliography of the Commentary and Criticism from 1826 to 1990." (G.K. Hall,
1993).
Karlin, Daniel. The courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. (Oxford, 1985) (Critical biography focused on
the courtship correspondence.)
Kelley, Philip et al. (Eds.) The Brownings' correspondence. 15 vols. to date. (Wedgestone, 1984-) (Complete
letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, so far to 1849.)
Garrett, Martin (Ed.) Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning: Interviews and Recollections (Basingstoke and
London, 2000). (Accounts of both poets by themselves and others.)
Woolf, Virginia. Flush: A Biography
(Biographical novella written from the perspective of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog, principally of curiosity value.)
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I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.
