Aurora Leigh

Book 1 opens with the pronouncement that the poet is writing in the guise of the protagonist, Aurora Leigh, and thus Barrett Browning deliberately blurs the line between the speaker and the poet, a conflation that intensifies as the poem unfolds, for as the poet states, “I will write my story for my better self” (4). This stylistic choice, while daring, also earned Barrett Browning a fair degree of negative feedback from 19th-century literary critics, one of whom contended, “[I]t is not [the characters] who speak, but Mrs. Browning. To sum up, it is the attempted union of the dramatic and meditative elements that is fatal to the work from an artistic point of view” (Essays by Arthur Christopher Benson, published by William Heinemann (London), 1896). Despite the inherent condescension of such criticism, however, the work stands as Barrett Browning’s magnum opus and highlights a myriad of intellectual discussions in which Aurora, who effectively stands as the poet’s literary avatar, delivers a series of incisive critiques on the expected roles of women within English society. In this way, the majority of the poem is focused upon exploring and redefining Female Identity and Value in the Victorian Era.

Additionally, Barrett Browning, as a member of the second generation of English Romantic poets, also makes it a point to pay homage to the giants of the first generation, chief among them being William Wordsworth. For example, the line “I have not so far left the coasts […] the outer Infinite” (Line 11) echoes Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” This homage serves to draw the emotionally heightened worldview of the first-generation Romantic poets into focus and forge a solid literary framework for the poem by referencing The Conceptual Hallmarks of the Romantic Movement. In this way, Barrett Browning draws upon the work of her recent peers to claim her own place among the literary greats of her time: a bold move in a social world known for maintaining an attitude of skepticism regarding women’s prowess in male-dominated fields such as literature. It is also worth noting that Wordsworth’s poem expresses the yearning of an infant for immortality through poetic aspirations, and this is a stance that Aurora Leigh will also take and which her character will shortly articulate to her cousin, Romney Leigh.  

From the very beginning, the speaker ruminates on the expected roles of women by invoking stereotypical tropes and figures and then overtly and covertly critiquing the social assumptions that fuel their existence. For example, Barrett Browning creates the character of Assunta to serve as a foster mother for the orphaned Aurora, and it is important to note that the woman’s very name is an Italian eponym for the Virgin Mary. This figure accordingly hovers over the poem and stands as an image of the silent, nurturing figure of a traditional woman. Likewise, the poet’s frustration with contemporary ideas about the role of women can be heard clearly in Aurora’s exclamation: “The works of women are symbolical. / We sew, sew, prick out fingers, dull our sight, / Producing what?” (Lines 456-57). Thus, it is clear that even at this early stage of the work, Aurora (and by extension, Barrett Browning herself) chafe beneath the restrictions that society imposes upon her desire for greater intellectual freedom.