Aurora Leigh, and other poems - Hardcover

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0704328208 ISBN 13: 9780704328204

Publisher: The Women's Press Ltd, 1978

Synopsis

This verse-novel tells the story of a female writer, balancing work and love. It is and based on Elizabeth's own experiences.

Excerpt from Aurora Leigh: A Poem in Nine Books
Aurora Leigh.
First Book.
Of writing many books there is no end;
And I, who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine, -
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer, and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.
I, writing thus, am still what men call young
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
"Hush, hush, here's too much noise!" while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit, and feel
My father's slow hand, when she has left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee,
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke heavily, heavily, the poor hair down,
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young, to sit alone.

About this title

From the Publisher

Aurora Leigh, a novel in verse, is Elizabeth Barrett Browning¹s tour de force. It describes, with vigor and brilliance, Aurora¹s successful rebellion against her conventional Victorian childhood: to travel to Italy, to find love, and to pursue her career as a writer. This volume, which also includes some of Browning¹s short political poems, ³embodies, like all enduring literature, truths that transcend historical particulars.² (The Guardian) Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) married the poet Robert Browning in 1846; they spent the next 15 years in Italy, where she published Sonnets from the Portuguese, her love poems to Robert Browning, and Aurora Leigh.

From the Back Cover

Wrote Virginia Woolf of Aurora Leigh in 1931. 'We laugh, we protest, we complain - it is absurd, it is impossible, we cannot tolerate this exaggeration a moment longer - but, nevertheless, we read to the end enthralled. What more can an author ask?' Aurora Leigh (1856), Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic novel in blank verse, tells the story of the making of a woman poet, exploring 'the woman question', art and its relation to politics and social oppression. In addition to Aurora Leigh, this volume contains poetry from the several volumes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's published poetry from 1826 to 1862, including The Cry of the Children (1843), Casa Guidi Windows (1851) and the British Library manuscript text of the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' which records her courtship with Robert Browning.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Women's Press Ltd
• Publication date: 1978
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0704328208
• ISBN 13: 9780704328204
• Binding: Hardcover