Elizabeth Barrett Browning was raised in a wealthy British family, which had accumulated much of their wealth from their slave-holdings in Jamaica. Elizabeth had private tutors in classical philosophy and in Latin. She published her first volume at the age of thirteen, and by the time she was thirty-five, she had grown to be one of the most popular poets in Britain, though she was then bedridden due to her ailments. Her father had forbidden her and all of her siblings from getting married. At home the family was run under strict aristocratic rule; however, she went against the wishes of her father and got eloped to Robert Browning in Italy.
Elizabeth wrote the Sonnets of the Portuguese to tell the story of the early years of her and Robert’s relationship. One of Elizabeth Browning’s more famous poems is Aurora Leigh. It is written in a long narrative and satirizes Victorian traditions and ideals. At one point, it pokes fun at the irony of the way women behave. It states that women’s work worthless and has no point. It also says that women try to become things that they are not in order to please men, when in actuality they cannot be pleased because they always desire something else. In any case, it is clear to see why she is a renowned writer
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8 comments:
I agree with you on your blog. Browning does seem to poke fun at the way that women acted, but I believe she was really criticizing the way that society caused women to conform to certain ways of acting. Your blog did a good job of relating the life of Browning.
Robert,
Congratulations on having submitted your 20th post. It is unfortunate you waited until a few days before the deadline to post any of them, though; as a result you failed to benefit from any feedback on your approach. Throughout your blog your posts tend to be too short and general, with summaries of the introductory biographical notes from the anthology but almost no analysis of specific passages from the readings. They tend to demonstrate little original thought or engagement with the readings.
I agree Robert with your statement about Browning's fame as a writer. (There's no denying that.) I thought it was strange how Elizabeth's father wouldn't allow her to move to warmer climates for the betterment of her health. And I thought it was sad that she had to seek and get married because her father didn't want her to.
I agree with you completely that it is easy to see why she is such an excellent writer. I liked the way you began with a little background on Elizabeth. The poems you chose to write about were definitely worth mentioning. Great job!
Elizabeth Browning definitely was a renowned writer and her writings made that clear to me as well. That time period was a difficult time period for women to live and that is made clear from "Aurora Leigh" and your blog. I also liked your background on the author. That was helpful.
I liked the way you gave some background information on Browning before discussing her work. I think she was trying to point out how women may behave and I think she was trying to say that a woman should not spend her life trying to please a man. I also like rharper's stance on the matter.
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