Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Encyclopedia Extract :: essays research papers

Shilstone, F.W.(1996). Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. In World Book Encyclopedia (Volume 2, pp. 655-656). Chicago World Book, Inc.Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the known poets of her time. The oldest of twelve children in an upper middle-class family, she received no formal education, but a desire for knowledge enabled her to learn eight languages on her own. She began piece poetry as a child, and by the time she reached adulthood she had published four immensely popular volumes of verse. Though a longtime illness make her something of a recluse, Barrett was able to meet some of the leading writers of the day. In 1845, she began to receive letters from the poet Robert Browning, who, after five months of correspondence, paid her a visit. They fell in love, and when Elizabeth&8217s stern father refused to allow her to spend the winter of 1846 in Italy as her doctors had advised, she and Browning &8220married secretly there (Shilstone, 1996, p.656). In 1849, their son was born , whom they nicknamed Pen.Elizabeth Barrett Browning used many different emotions when writing her poetry. In the collection, Sonnets from the Portuguese (1849), Elizabeth let the love for her husband speak. The whole collection is forty-four poems written to Robert Browning. Aurora Leigh (1857) is yet another representative of love being prominent in Elizabeth&8217s writings. Another element in Elizabeth&8217s writings is statements about faith and her illness/death. In the finish line of her &8220most famous sonnet (p.656) Sonnet 43 Elizabeth says, &8220and if God choose,/ I shall but love thee better after death. In the 19th century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning helped to amend the sonnet cycle, which is a series of sonnets loosely connected by a common subject or theme.