Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• Born 1806, the eldest child of a prosperous
  merchant family
• Self-educated at home from the age of four
• Composed her first poem at the age of eleven
• Suffered an injury to her spine at the age of
  fifteen and illness seven years later. This left
  her an invalid all her life
• At age of twenty published her first book of
  poetry
• In 1832, family suffered financial loss. The
  family moved to London

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

• Due to poor health, she moved to Rorquay on the
  south coast of Devonshire
• Spent three years living as an invalid
• Returned to London and resigned herself to life
  confined to her bedroom as an invalid.
• In 1845, she began exchanging letters with Robert
  Browning
• The following year they married and moved to
  Florence, Italy
• Their son Robert was born in 1849
• Elizabeth died in 1861
• At the time of her death, she was more popular
  than Robert

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Images of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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E.B. Brownings Poetry

• Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
• Casa Guidi Windows (1851)
• Aurora Leigh (1857)
• Collection of poetry published after her death

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Sonnets from the Portuguese

• The sonnets record her love for Robert
• The sonnets progressed as her relationship with
  Browning progressed
• Great outpouring of feeling and intensity of
  passion
• e

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Aurora Leigh
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• Synthesis of lyric and narrative elements,
  literary and social theory
• Foundational text for women poets, feminist
  activists, and feminist literary scholars.
• A prose narrative of an artists development