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Poet, the eldest of twelve children of Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, plantation owner, and his wife Mary. Her early works The Battle of Marathon (1820) and An Essay on Mind (1826) were privately printed at her father’s expense. She became versed in the classics and in prosodic theory, and later published translations from ancient and Byzantine Greek poetry. Her Prometheus Bound, Translated from the Greek of Aeschylus, and Miscellaneous Poems (1833)—as the production of a self-educated young woman —prompted critical praise. Mary Russell Mitford, whom Elizabeth first met in 1836, became an encouraging friend. In 1838, seriously ill, she was sent to Torquay where, two years later, her eldest brother Edward (known as ‘Bro’) was drowned, to her lifelong grief. The poems ‘De Profundis’ and ‘Grief’ record the pain of this period. She returned to London, still unwell, in 1841.
Her prolific creativity of 1841–4 culminated in Poems (1844), which confirmed her place as a significant poet. She was Alfred Tennyson’s rival for the laureateship of 1850. This publication also prompted Robert Browning to write to her in 1845. Their courtship, from May 1845 until their marriage in September 1846, is recorded in their collected correspondence. The marriage was necessarily secret since Elizabeth’s strong-minded father forbade his adult children to marry (on his discovery of the union he disinherited her) and the Brownings left England for Italy. Their only child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning (known as Penini, or Pen), was born in Casa Guidi, their apartment in Florence, 1849. The Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) bear eloquent witness to the conflicts and strength of her love for Browning, and were followed by Casa Guidi Windows (1851), on the theme of Italian liberation. Her principal work, Aurora Leigh, appeared in 1856.
Throughout her married life Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetic reputation stood higher than Browning’s in public opinion, though her progressive social ideas and audacious prosodic experiments were alarming for some. The highly political Poems before Congress (1860), which concluded with ‘A Curse for a Nation’, diminished her popularity; but Last Poems, issued posthumously in 1862, contained some of her best-known lyrics.
Her prolific creativity of 1841–4 culminated in Poems (1844), which confirmed her place as a significant poet. She was Alfred Tennyson’s rival for the laureateship of 1850. This publication also prompted Robert Browning to write to her in 1845. Their courtship, from May 1845 until their marriage in September 1846, is recorded in their collected correspondence. The marriage was necessarily secret since Elizabeth’s strong-minded father forbade his adult children to marry (on his discovery of the union he disinherited her) and the Brownings left England for Italy. Their only child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning (known as Penini, or Pen), was born in Casa Guidi, their apartment in Florence, 1849. The Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) bear eloquent witness to the conflicts and strength of her love for Browning, and were followed by Casa Guidi Windows (1851), on the theme of Italian liberation. Her principal work, Aurora Leigh, appeared in 1856.
Throughout her married life Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetic reputation stood higher than Browning’s in public opinion, though her progressive social ideas and audacious prosodic experiments were alarming for some. The highly political Poems before Congress (1860), which concluded with ‘A Curse for a Nation’, diminished her popularity; but Last Poems, issued posthumously in 1862, contained some of her best-known lyrics.