# data[].attributes.headline
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Her Upbringing

# data[].attributes.subject
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Her Upbringing

# data[].attributes.body
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Born in Kelloe, United Kingdom on March 6th, 1806 to Edward and Mary Moulton. She grew up in a big family. She was the first of twelve; however she lost many of her siblings due to illnesses. She had a relatively hard upbringing due to the losses she faced with her siblings, the detrimental relationship she shared with her father, and the health problems she faced throughout her years. But with all that, she never lost hope. Due to her health problems, Barrett Browning was confined to her room in most of her younger years where she learned multiple languages in her spare time and where she grey the passion for writing. She later began to publish many of her writings. Through those writings, and some help from her father, she was introduced to bigger writers and this is when her writing career ultimately takes off. She had a passion for spirituality and women/children's right. Which can be seen throughout the majority of her works. In her late 30's early 40's she met another poet by the name of Robert Browning whom she fell in love with. Her love for Robert can be seen in many of her works as well, like in the "Sonnets from the Portuguese".  Barrett Browning father disapproved of her and Robert's relationship. So, she was disinherited from her family thus leading the couple to escape to Italy where Barrett Browning went with hope for a better future and longed to heal from her past. Once she found it herself she wrote it to help others to never lose hope and heal as well.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvictorian-era.org%2Frobert-browning-detailed-biography%2Frelationship-between-robert-browning-and-elizabeth-barrett-browning.html&psig=AOvVaw2jVN-w1onPDxvjItBIbQIv&ust=1648607402137000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAgQjRxqFwoTCMjKqKmj6vYCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=english-textbooks

# data[].attributes.body
Elizabeth and Robert Browning eloped on the 12th of September of 1846. This is a painting of the two lovers pictured together.

# data[].attributes.body
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a very successful writer meaning the majority of her poems were very successful; however, some of her most famous poems consisted of:

-‘How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways’.
i. This became one of the most famous readings to be     used at a wedding
ii. Published in 1850

-‘Bianca among the Nightingales’
i. believed to be published in 1844

-‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point’
i. Published in 1847

-‘A Musical Instrument’
i. Written in 1860

Although these are some of the people's favorites, some of my favorites consist of:

-'The Cry of the Children'

-'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
i. specifically 'Sonnets from the Portuguese 22'

https://interestingliterature.com/2019/10/the-best-elizabeth-barrett-browning-poems-everyone-should-read/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) is less famous now as a poet in her own right, and more familiar as the wife of Robert Browning, whom she courted through a series of extraordinary love letters in the 1840s. It was not always this way. Once upon a time, Robert Browning was the struggling obscure poet and Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the one who, upon Wordsworth's death in 1850, was considered for the post of Poet Laureate. (In the end, Tennyson got the job.) But Barrett Browning left behind some of the most interesting Victorian poems, written in a variety of forms, genres, and styles. Here are some of her very best poems.

'The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point'. As well as writing some of the most famous love poetry of the Victorian era (see below), Elizabeth Barrett Browning also explored and tackled social issues in her poetry. In this poem, a dramatic monologue, she writes in the character of a black female slave in the United States, on the run having endured a series of horrors: her lover has been murdered and she has been raped, and the baby that resulted was deemed 'too white' because of its mixed ethnicity. A tragic poem (we won't give away the ending here though the stanzas below provide a clue), the poem is still a powerful indictment of the treatment of black slaves in nineteenth-century America. The poem was written to raise funds for the abolitionist cause.

Our wounds are different. Your white men
Are, after all, not gods indeed,
Nor able to make Christs again
Do good with bleeding. We who bleed . . .
(Stand off!) we help not in our loss!
We are too heavy for our cross,
And fall and crush you and your seed.

I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky:
The clouds are breaking on my brain;
I am floated along, as if I should die
Of liberty's exquisite pain -
In the name of the white child, waiting for me
In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree,
White men, I leave you all curse-free
In my broken heart's disdain!

Follow the link above to read the full poem.

'Bianca among the Nightingales'. This is a tragic love poem, and another example of the dramatic monologue form. Set in Italy, it sees Bianca weeping among the sorrowful song of the nightingales for her lost love:

The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales'
Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fireflies and the nightingales
Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales.

Upon the angle of its shade
The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up, half down, as double-made,
Along the ground, against the sky.
And we, too! from such soul-height went
Such leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
We scarce knew if our nature meant
Most passionate earth or intense heaven.
The nightingales, the nightingales.

We paled with love, we shook with love,
We kissed so close we could not vow;
Till Giulio whispered, `Sweet, above
God's Ever guarantees this Now.'
And through his words the nightingales
Drove straight and full their long clear call,
Like arrows through heroic mails,
And love was awful in it all.
The nightingales, the nightingales.

'A Musical Instrument'. Focusing on the piper-god from Greek mythology, Pan, this poem tells of how the god of shepherds fashions a flute from the reeds in a river, and starts to produce enchanting music:

Follow the link above to read the full poem.

'How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways'. This is a love poem written about Barrett Browning's own beloved, Robert. The poem was first published in a sonnet sequence, Sonnets from the Portuguese, in 1850, though the poems that make up the sequence were written around five years earlier. It's a little-known fact that the first ever sonnet sequence in English was written by a woman, and throughout history the sonnet sequence has tended to be associated with male poets: Petrarch, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, George Meredith. And although Barrett Browning's title sounds as though she is translating poems written by some Portuguese sonneteer, that title Sonnets from the Portuguese was in fact a little in-joke: 'Portuguese' was Robert's affectionate nickname for Elizabeth, so these sonnets are from her and her alone: sonnets from Robert's beloved 'Portuguese'.

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...

'Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers'. Another of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, is a fine love poem about her courtship and eventual marriage to her fellow poet, Robert Browning. In terms of its form, 'Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers' is a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. But unlike Petrarch's medieval sonnets in the courtly love tradition, the relationship between the man and woman has been consummated in Barrett Browning's poem. The courting has involved the gift of 'many flowers' - flowers, of course, are often associated with poetry, as the etymology of the term anthology demonstrates.

Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers...

'If Thou Must Love Me, Let It Be for Naught'. Another poem from Barrett Browning's sonnet sequence to Robert, this one sees her espousing the idea of 'love for love's sake'. With its catalogue of features which the poet says she wishes her lover will not single out, it forms a neat counterpoint to 'How Do I Love Thee?' above:

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way
Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'-
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,-and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,-
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Aurora Leigh. Barrett Browning's love affair with epic poetry began at a young age: when she was just twelve years old, she wrote The Battle of Marathon, an epic poem about the battle between the Greeks and Persians in 490 BC. But her crowning achievement in the genre would be her long blank-verse novel Aurora Leigh (1857), about an aspiring female poet, which takes in issues of marriage, female authorship and independence, and what happened to women who 'strayed' outside of the accepted norms of Victorian society: the so-called 'fallen woman', embodied here by Aurora's friend Marian Erle. Although it's often considered a verse novel, Aurora Leigh contains elements of epic poetry.

'To Flush, My Dog'. 'A dog is a man's best friend', they say. But one hopes that in this case, as the old jest has it, 'man embraces woman', and that what the anonymous author of this proverb had in mind was the close bond between dogs and humans, whether men or women. Flush, the name of the cocker spaniel belonging to Barrett Browning, was clearly a close friend of his poet-owner, and Barrett Browning penned this lovely poem about her beloved dog.

Follow the link above to read the full poem.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Best Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems Everyone Should Read

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) is less famous now as a poet in her own right, and more familiar as the wife of Robert Browning, whom she courted through a series of extraordinary love letters in the 1840s. It was not always this way. Once upon a time, Robert Browning was the struggling obscure poet and...

# data[].attributes.body
Some of the most prominent, or major themes seen throughout Barrett Browning's poems are:

- Social Injustice (Specifically women and children's rights)
- Spirituality/Religion
- Nature

Barrett Browning explored the social injustice theme due to the societal inequalities she saw present in not only the United Kingdom but America as well.

Also, in the time she spent in her wrong along with the health problems she faced, she relied heavily on her religion and faith to get her through hard times which she explored and is present in her work as well.

Barrett Browning was raised on a big bulk of land that her parents had acquired over a few years which could explain her need to explore nature through her writings because she was surrounded by it.

https://spiritualpathspiritualistchurch.org/elizabeth-barrett-browning-poet-and-spiritualist/

https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=english-textbooks

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born in 1806, in County Durham, England to Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke. Elizabeth was the oldest of 12 children born to the wealthy family who had owned sugar plantations in Jamaica for generations. Elizabeth was raised with all the finery of high society. In 1809, the family moved to Hope End, a 500-acre estate in Ledbury, Herefordshire. Elizabeth was tutored at home and began writing verses at the age of four. Her father called her the "Poet Laureate" of Hope End.

As a child, Elizabeth was stricken with an illness that caused intense head and spinal pain with loss of mobility. She was treated for a spinal problem, but it continued for the rest of her life. She began taking opiates and was dependent upon them most of her life. In her teens, she read Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women and became a supporter of her ideas.

Elizabeth's mother died in 1828 and Elizabeth's aunt, helped to care for the children. In 1831 Elizabeth's grandmother died and her father's investment losses forced him to sell Hope End. Between 1833 and 1835, they lived at Belle Vue in Sidmouth. Elizabeth was struck with another illness that could have been tuberculosis.

Between 1841 and 1844, Elizabeth was prolific in poetry, translation, and prose. Her 1844 volume Poems made her one of the most popular writers in the country. Her romantic subject matter attracted the attention of Robert Browning and they met in 1845 and married a year later.

The couple came to know a large group of writers and artists. Elizabeth's interest in Spiritualism grew. While in Florence in 1847, she first heard about Spiritual phenomena. She became friends with the sculptor, Hiram Powers who had a common interest in Swedenborg and Spiritualism. By 1852, while in Paris, she discussed spirit rapping with Lady Elgin. She crossed to England where she participated in table tipping experiments with her husband, Frederick Tennyson and Robert Lytton. She also met with Mrs. Newton Crosland, a notable Spiritualist.

Elizabeth was a believer in Spiritualism and it influenced much of her later poetry. Robert Browning was not easily convinced. They traveled back and forth between England and Italy. In 1855, they attended the Ealing séance, conducted by D.D. Home. It included spirit hands, rappings, table tilting and levitation, bell ringing, and direct voice. Browning thought it was all faked. Elizabeth believed most was real. It became a point of contention between them for the rest of their marriage.

In 1861, a few months before her death, Elizabeth wrote, "I don't know how people can keep up their prejudices against spiritualism with tears in their eyes, - how that are not, at least, thrown on the 'wish that might be true', and the investigation of the phenomena, by that abrupt shutting in their faces of the door of death, which shuts them out from the sight of their beloved." The couple spent the winter of 1860-61 in Rome where Elizabeth's health deteriorated. She died on 29 June 1861 in her husband's arms.

Additional Reading:

Hill, Christina B. T. (1977) A Study of Spiritualism in the Life and Work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Doctoral Thesis, University of Birmingham.

Lewis, Linda M. (2005) Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A poet's Quest for Ultimate Reality. Bethany College, Lindsborg, KS, USA. www.utpjournals.press

Mermin, Dorothy (1989) Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Origins of a New Poetry, University of Chicago Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Poet and Spiritualist - Spiritual Path Church

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born in 1806, in County Durham, England to Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke. Elizabeth was the oldest of 12 children born to the wealthy family who had owned sugar plantations in Jamaica for generations. Elizabeth was raised with all the finery of high society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Picture of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her only son.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Influence Barrett Browning Life Had On Her Work

# data[].attributes.subject
The Influence Barrett Browning Life Had On Her Work

# data[].attributes.body
The faith that Barrett Browning used growing up to maintain hope and heal her inner self can be seen all throughout her work; however, she exemplifies it through symbols and word play. She uses words like golden orb, souls, angels, etc. throughout her works.

Barrett Browning also grew up on a big bulk of land where nature surrounded her. Due to her being confined to her house for illness, she became one with the outdoors where she learned to take the nature that surrounded her and turn it into something beautiful in the sense of literature.

After moving to Italy, Barrett Browning acquired a new found interest in Italian Independence which branched off into a passion for human rights; specifically women and children' rights. This can specifically be seen in her poem 'The Cry of the Children' where she focuses in on child labor.

Although there are many aspects of Barrett Browning's life that can be seen in her works, the most prominent one is her love for Robert Browning. Many of her work discusses eternal and unconditional love in which she is referring to her husband.

# data[].attributes.body
Although, upon research, it does not appear that Barrett Browning won any awards during her time writing, she was still a well accomplished and successful writer/poet even to this day. She even accomplished a lot as a child. She started writing poetry by the age of six, she wrote French dramas by the age of ten and published her first book by the age of 14.