|
|
Article: Barrett Browning's poetic vocation: crying, singing, breathing.(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Victorian Poetry
- Article date:
- December 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 West Virginia University Press, University of West Virginia. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
O Hyacinthes, for ay your AI keepe still.
--William Drummond, "Teares, On the Death of Moeliades"
THE POETIC CAREER OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING FROM APPRENTICE to master has been mapped many times. Her turn from cloistered classicism and imitation in her early poems to self-assertion and innovation in Aurora Leigh has been carefully described, for example, by Dorothy Mermin. Mermin convincingly shows that Barrett Browning's "main subject" and "struggle," throughout her career, is "to find woman's place in the central tradition of poetry." (1) In her 1995 book on Barrett Browning, Marjorie Stone traces the development of the poetry up to Aurora Leigh by ...