Elizabeth Barrett Browning Research Paper

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6th 1806 - june 29th 1861) also known as Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was one of the most distinguished and influential English writers of the Victorian era, popular in the United States and Britain throughout her lifetime. The eldest of twelve children, being born to wealthy plantation owner Edward Moulton-Barrett (1785-1857) and his wife Mary née Graham (1781-1828) gave mrs.Browning a privileged childhood allowing her to experience the highest education a woman of this time could get. Some of Mrs.Browning’s most notable works include Aurora Leigh (1856) which critics believe display the loss of her mother and Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) which are regarded as classical love poems. Her works were
Browning’s interest in feminist works started at a young age by way of Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Browning’s works had inspired critical minds such as Virginia Woolf who admired her for her forthrightness and confidence. Mrs.Woolf’s favorite piece by Browning was Aurora Leigh Because it dealt with some social injustices committed by domineering men that were addressed by feminism. Moreover Browning’s work highly influenced American poet Emily Dickinson who had a similarly isolated life: The importance of Browning’s writings were not excluded to women either. Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems evoke fickle emotions from the reader such love and compare to those of her male counterparts. Sonnets 14 and 43 evoke emotion through the use of alliteration of the letter L, usually connected to the word love. In Sonnet 14 Browning addresses the reader or ‘her lover’ in a forthright genuine tone and asks that they not love her for superficial, cosmetic, or one-dimensional reasons that are temporary. She wants an eternal and genuine love that isn’t going to fade away because of fickle justifications like lust and beauty: