Aurora Leigh

Barrett Browning’s protagonist, Aurora Leigh, describes her early upbringing. (In real time, the 20-year-old will age seven years during the course of the poem.) Aurora relates that when she was four, her Florentine mother died, and her father, an “austere Englishman” (Line 65) consumed by questions of social justice moved from Florence to Pelago. When Aurora is 13, her father dies. In his last words, he earnestly entreats his daughter to pursue love in her life. As an orphan, she leaves Italy and travels by boat to England to live with her very strict aunt at Leigh Hall. Although generous, Aurora’s aunt has a cold disposition and insists that Aurora undergo the narrow education that is typical for a woman during this time frame, which Aurora describes as “water-torture,” leveling criticism at the conventions of social conduct (Line 468). 

Despite their contradictory natures and differing ages, the young Aurora plays with her cousin, Romney Leigh, in the countryside surrounding Leigh Hall. Aurora finds respite from her repressive educational environment in nature and literature, though her aunt discourages this tendency. After reflections on the relationship between art and nature that flutter between Barrett Browning’s