Elizabeth Barrett Browning Research Paper

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning is known not only for her romantic poems, but also her beliefs towards equality. Browning wrote many famous poems, and started at a very young age. She had timeless poems about everything from her dedication to her husband, to the treatment of children in the work force. Browning had firm beliefs for all around equality for children, women, and slaves. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born to an upper middle class family is 1806. Browning was the oldest of twelve children. She was called “Ba” by her favorite brother she called “Bro”. At twelve she was working on a diary called, Memorandum Book Containing the Day and Night thoughts of Elizabeth Barrett. This diary shows Browning’s maturity …show more content…

Robert Browning wrote her a letter of admiration, praising her work, and over the span of twenty months they exchanged 574 letters. In 1846 Robert and Elizabeth eloped, to the disappointment of her father whom she never spoke to again. The Brownings moved to Florence, Italy, where Elizabeth became healthier and had a son named Robert Wideman Browning. While in Florence she wrote her most famous work; Sonnets from the Portuguese. This was a collection of 44 sonnets, dedicated to her husband. Many say that it is the most widely known love lyrics in the English language. According to Poets.org “Admirers have compared her imagery to Shakespeare and her use of the Italian form to Petrarch.” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning). One of the most famous sonnets from her collection is Sonnet 43. Browning wrote;“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace.” (Sonnet from the Portuguese, Sonnet 43) as her declaration of love for her husband after leaving her father and old life …show more content…

Though her poetry on the social injustices were not as popular, they were still recognized by Europe. She wrote about many different injustices in her time, such as; “the oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, the child labor mines and mills of England, and slavery, among other social injustices.” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poets.org) She wrote Casa Guidi Windows (1848-1851) and Poems Before Congress (1860) as a sign of her sympathy for Italy’s struggle for unification, and Aurora Leigh to show the male dominance over women. Though her most famous volume was The Cry of the Children. PoetryFoundation.org describes The Cry of the Children’s conception as “[Browning] Having read the reports from the parliamentary commissioners of the terrible conditions of children's employment in mines, trades, and manufactures, she tells of the hopeless lives of the boys and girls who are the victims of capitalist exploitation.”. Though she was a sickly woman, from an upper-middle class family, The Cry of the Children was very well received due to her passion for

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