Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Poetry Of

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett was born on 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, the eldest of twelve children. Family wealth was derived from sugar plantations manned by slaves in Jamaica and enabling them to also purchase a 500 acre estate in Herefordshire. This wealth allowed her to publish poems from an early age. However by age 20 the family’s fortunes were to decline, but never below comfortable, after losing a lawsuit over their plantations . Shortly thereafter Elizabeth became afflicted with an unknown disease and became addicted to morphine. Despite this she continued to write and became increasingly popular both in England and in the United States. Her poems against slavery chronicled her abhorrence of the basis of the family wealth. In 1844 she was introduced to the younger Robert Browning who was a great admirer of her work and began a secret courtship and thence to marriage. To him she wrote and dedicated one of her greatest works; Sonnets from the Portuguese and they went to live in Italy in 1846. Although by now an invalid she seemed insecure of the love of the vigorous Robert but continued to write and publish poetry as diverse as love sonnets and political pieces before succumbing to death in 1861. Many of these poems are also available on our audiobook version at iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copyright Group
• Release date: Sep 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780005119

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) was an English poet. The daughter of a wealthy family—her father made his fortune as a slave owner in Jamaica, while her mother’s family owned and operated sugar plantations, mills, and ships—Browning eventually became an abolitionist and advocate for child labor laws. Her marriage to the prominent Victorian poet Robert Browning caused the final break between Browning and her family, after which she moved to Italy and lived there with Robert for the rest of her life. She began writing poems at a young age, finding success with the 1844 publication of Poems. Browning went on to be recognized as one of the foremost poets of early Victorian England, influencing such writers as Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is most famous for her Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of 44 love poems published in 1850, and Aurora Leigh, an 1856 epic poem described by leading Victorian critic John Ruskin as the greatest long poem written in the nineteenth century. Browning suffered from numerous illnesses throughout her life, eventually succumbing in Florence at the age of 55.

Book preview

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Poetry

Poetry is a fascinating use of language.  With almost a million words at its command it is not surprising that these Isles have produced some of the most beautiful, moving and descriptive verse through the centuries.  In this series we look at individual poets who have shaped and influenced their craft and cement their place in our heritage.

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett was born on 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, the eldest of twelve children.  Family wealth was derived from sugar plantations manned by slaves in Jamaica and enabling them to also purchase a 500 acre estate in Herefordshire.  This wealth allowed her to publish poems from an early age.  However by age 20 the family’s fortunes were to decline, but never below comfortable, after losing a lawsuit over their plantations .  Shortly thereafter Elizabeth became afflicted with an unknown disease and became addicted to morphine.

Despite this she continued to write and became increasingly popular both in England and in the United States.  Her poems against slavery chronicled her abhorrence of the basis of the family wealth

In 1844 she was introduced to the younger Robert Browning who was a great admirer of her work and began a secret courtship and thence to marriage.  To him she wrote and dedicated one of her greatest works; ‘Sonnets From The Portuguese’ and they went to live in Italy in 1846.   Although her health continued to deteriorate her population and influence increased as she continued to write and publish poetry as diverse as love sonnets and political pieces before succumbing to death in 1861.    Today she is much loved and highly regarded as one of the greatest of the Victorian poets. 

Many samples are at our youtube channel   http://www.youtube.com/user/PortablePoetry?feature=mhee   The full volume can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.  Among our readers are Richard Mitchley and Ghizela Rowe

Index Of Poetry

The Soul’s Expression

Tears

The Best Thing In The World

The House Of Clouds

The Prisoner

The Poet And The Bird

The Two Sayings

The Lady’s Yes

A Curse For A Nation

A Thought For A Lonely Death Bed

A Man’s Requirtements

A Woman’s Shortcomings

Comfort

Consolation

Adequacy

An Apprehension

A Musical Instrument

Discontent

Exaggeration

Futurity

Grief

Insufficiency

Irreparableness

Minstrelsy

My Heart And I

Mother And Poet

Pain In Pleasure

Past And Future

Perplexed Music

The Best Thing In The World

The Cry Of The Children

The Runaway Slave At Pilgrims Point

Sonnets From The Portuguese

The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers

A Thought For A Lonely Death Bed

The Soul’s Expression

With stammering lips and insufficient sound

I strive and struggle to deliver right

That music of my nature, day and night

With dream and thought and feeling interwound

And inly answering all the senses round

With octaves of a mystic depth and height

Which step out grandly to the infinite

From the dark edges of the sensual ground.

This song of soul I struggle to outbear

Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,

And utter all myself into the air:

But if I did it,--as the thunder-roll

Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,

Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

Tears

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not

More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--

That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell

Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.

Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot,

The mother singing, at her marriage-bell

The bride weeps, and before the oracle

Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot

Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,

Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done,

Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place

And touch but tombs,--look up I those tears will run

Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,

And leave the vision clear for stars and sun

The Best Thing In The World

What's the best thing in the world?

June-rose, by May-dew impearled;

Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;

Truth, not cruel to a friend;

Pleasure, not in haste to end;

Beauty, not self-decked and curled

Till its pride is over-plain;

Love, when, so, you're loved again.

What's the best thing in the world?

Something out of it, I think.

The House Of Clouds

I would build a cloudy House

For my thoughts to live in;

When for earth too fancy-loose

And too low for Heaven!

Hush! I talk my dream aloud

I build it bright to see,

I build it on the moonlit cloud,

To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,

Faced

Reviews for Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Poetry Of

[stpnwlf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not my favorite poet.