
Brief biography and works of English poet Elizabeth Barrett
Bowning, famous for "Sonnets from the Portuguese."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the finest woman
poet in England
famous for the line "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." She is best remembered for her love poems
inspired by her husband Robert Browning.
Early Life of Elizabeth Barrett
Illness Struck the Teenager
At fifteen years old, Elizabeth Barrett developed a tubercular discomfort that damaged her spine, and spent much of her life as an invalid. The Barretts decided to move to a London house when she was 29, where she kept to her room, becoming more deeply depressed by the death of her brother Edward who drowned along with other friends during a boating expedition party at Torquay in 1840.
The Poet Flourishes
Soon after, however, Browning's poetry started
to pick up and making her famous. Critics praised The Seraphim and Other Poems,
while her Poems written in 1844 brought praise from one young British poet
Robert Browning and the American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
Love and the Brownings
She was 39 years old when she met Robert
Browning, six years her junior. Elizabeth and Robert fell in love and married
the following year they met. Against her father's wishes they secretly married
and moved to Italy, first in
Pisa and then Florence, where the couple became the center
of intellectual literary circle there. There they had a son, Robert, Jr., and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning lived happily for her last 15 years.
Her famous "Sonnets from the
Portuguese" – 44 poems about her love for the man she married – appeared
in 1850. 'The Portuguese' was Robert Browning's nickname for dark-haired Elizabeth.
Works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Seraphim and Other Poems, 1838
Poems, 1844 (including "The Cry of the
Children")
Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850
Casa Guidi Windows, 1851
Aurora Leigh, 1856
Poems Before Congress, 1860
Last Poems, 1862 (Published after she died)
Video Credit:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways - Elizabeth B. Browning. ESL and Popular Culture. Accessed March 6, 2018
Resources:
Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una
McGovern, Chambers (2002)
Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary
Goring, Larousse (1994)
Note: I first published this piece for Suite101.com, July 3, 2008. / Tel
Note: I first published this piece for Suite101.com, July 3, 2008. / Tel
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