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Aurora Leigh

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

3.73 · Rating details · 2,174 ratings · 119 reviews

This verse-novel tells the story of a female writer, balancing work and love. It is and based on Elizabeth's own experiences.

Excerpt from Aurora Leigh: A Poem in Nine Books
Aurora Leigh.
First Book.
Of writing many books there is no end;
And I, who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine, -
Will write my story for my better self,
As when ...more

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Paperback, Oxford World’s Classics, 361 pages

Published September 17th 1998 by Oxford University Press (first published 1856)

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· 2,174 ratings · 119 reviews

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May 15, 2016 Sean Barrs rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Jane Eyre Fans

Shelves: 4-star-reads, classics, poetry

What do you say to someone who tells you to stop being yourself? You love him and you want to marry him, and he comes out with that. He tells you to stop writing poetry; it’s something women can’t do well apparently, and he tells you to give it up. Essentially, he tells you to stop being you. Here is Romney’s ignorant argument to his Aurora:

“We get no Christ from you- and verily
We shall not get a poet in my mind."

Aurora does the right thing, she says the right things, and she walks away. She d ...more

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Jan 22, 2021 Ruby Granger rated it really liked it

I did very much enjoy this -- especially the first two books. Aurora Leigh grows into such a strong, enlivened character. Barrett Browning shows that she is not just intellectually equal, but intellectually superior to the men in her life, and her moral/philosophical beliefs (which are kind of Stoic?) provide much food for thought. A great proto-feminist novel.

This is an Epic Poem, but the plot is far from the kind of thing you find in Homer and Milton. It's a bildungsroman, following the progre ...more

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Aug 25, 2018 Czarny Pies rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Whimsical readers.

Shelves: english-lit

I am surprised how much I enjoyed this odd-ball work. It is feminist from a time when the word did not exist. As a verse novel it was highly experimental. As I am not aware of any other verse novels having been written since it would appear to be trial balloon that failed rather than an innovation.

Perhaps some versifier might consider a second attempt. As a reader I felt that the approach worked very well particularly in the first half. The events in the novel are banal and the characters are of ...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Ellis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, in-my-possession, high-hopes, lyrically-being-lyrical, mathematical-shapes-of-love, adult, reviewed, own-physical-copy, boss-heroine, criticism

Actual rating is closer to 3.75 stars.

Ah, Aurora Leigh, how do I review thee?
Shall I recount the ways in which you made me cry,
the nights of frustration, the days of recluse,
since I had a dissertation to finish,
and you were just so damn unreadable?

Aurora Leigh is a weird book.

With that, I reworked my basic sigh of desperation while I was writing into the opening line of my dissertation, because this book is just fucking weird, man.

I regularly doubted if I should keep that introduction, but m ...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Kara Brockett rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Maybe this poem fascinates me because I go to Baylor. Maybe these words excite me because I can stroll through the Armstrong-Browning library and see early drafts of Aurora Leigh in the author's own handwriting. Maybe EBB's living room furniture releases some abundance of curiosity in my mind that pops the words off the page. Maybe I like this poem because I know that EBB and I have read many of the same books and this produces some type of brain kinship.

I'm not really sure.

All I know is that I ...more

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Apr 19, 2015 Aubrey rated it really liked it

Shelves: antidote-think-twice-all, 4-star, r-goodreads, r-2018, reviewed, 1-read-on-hand, poetry, reality-check, antidote-think-twice-read

4.9/5

I believe / In no one's honour which another keeps, / Nor man's nor woman's.

Do we keep / Our love to pay our debts with?

4.9/5

I believe / In no one's honour which another keeps, / Nor man's nor woman's.

Do we keep / Our love to pay our debts with?

It is rather pathetic, what is encouraged to soar and what is denied that extra gust of wind beneath its wings. More pathetic yet is when the status quo suckers bend over backwards to excuse the artificiality as if, pound for pound, the more neglected demographic did not meet the demands, layer by layer, pillar by pillar, defined by such vaunted categories as the epic poem. Aurora Leigh proved neither a five star nor a favorite, but bear in mind that I bought, mostly out of luck and partially out of desperation, an edition more contemporaneous with the author than myself, and so all the neat and mayhaps necessary aids to my understanding via the categorization of references and allusions were nowhere to be found. Thus, this is one of those works that goes down as needing a future revisit through the medium of a more modern edition, as while I caught what I could from such mainstream mentions of Shakespeares and burned houses, I want the full fleshed out form of something so old and yet so relevant to my self. Maybe then this will prove the five star or even favorite edition, but for now, I am satisfied with what I have gotten thus far.

What is done, is done, / And violence is now turned privilege, / As cream turns cheese, if buried long enough.

Yet, behold, / Behold!—the world of books is still the world; / And worldlings in it are less merciful / And more puissant. For the wicked there / Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes, / Is edged from elemental fire to assail / A spiritual life. The beautiful seems right / By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong / Because of weakness.

Name me a Victorian male who delves into all the viciousness of class relations between women with all its associated breeding and selling of bodies, sets it all to walk in tandem with the woman as artist and the artist as artist, not unspoken male, and tops it off with glorious depictions of nature, morality, duty, and love of literature, the last both in terms of creation and indulgence. No, I do not suppose any of those would prove a worthy topic, unless there were porn of some sort in the vein of tragedy or disability or some boxed up automaton carved out by Pygmalion and wound up only after signing all their rights away under conventions of love or marriage. Other topics not worthy of mention here, I imagine: girlish childhoods hemmed in by xenophobia, womanly balances between financial independence and financial security, artistic concerns with constructing social systems versus grounding spiritual welfare, distinguishing between having made a mistake and having made the right mistake at the right time, solidarity out of the spirit of gender and the recognition of all the ills the world wills on the gender after rendering it said gender, etc, etc, etc. Perhaps one or more would claim the third or fourth, but they would have to mind the constant theme of girlish, womanly, female gender, female artistry, female, female, always female, never an onlooker, never an outsider (and when I mean outside, I mean of the cis variety. don't mistake my concerns for a bad faith reliance on inherently variable, biological matterns), never a thief, never a liar, never a fool.

[W]e have all known / Good critics, who have stamped out poets' hopes; / Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; / Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; / Good kings, who disembowelled for a tax; / Good popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; / Good Christians, who sate still in easy chairs, / And damned the general world for standing up.

Men get opinions as boys learn to spell. / By reiteration chiefly[.]

One of the most powerful countries in the world today has had at its helm for more than a year an incompetent in all things save for matters of sexual assault, so you cannot tell me all the other representatives of that incompetents gender do not have to work twice as hard to make up for their failure (exceptions may be made for race), as it would not be the first time such fallacious distribution of responsibility had been made, or the second, or the fourteen hundredth; all it would be, just maybe, is the first time for a certain demographic, and likely it would slough off as much as water sloughs off the back of a duck, for this demographic has been in power for five firm centuries, enough time to have twisted all the recorded history before into the foulest sort of mirror, where rape is love and slavery is hospitality and genocide is the birth of a nation, and the modern people suffer for it. To find such an epic poem/novel as this is merely half the work, for a woman may still be white and well enough and thus incapable of encompassing the other four-fifths of the world, but in terms of starting points, it is of a better quality than most of which is currently trumpeted in ivory towels as the only triumphs of their kind.

I do distrust the poet who discerns / No character or glory in his times, / And trundles back his soul five hundred years, / Past moat and drawbridge, into a castle-court, / Oh, not to sing of lizards or of toads / Alive i' the ditch there?—'twere excusable; / But of some black chief, half knight, half sheep-lifter. / Some beauteous dame, half chattel and half queen, / As dead as must be, for the greater part, / The poems made on their chivalric bones, / And that's no wonder: death inherits death.

...more

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Feb 21, 2019 Lichella rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, uni

I mean... I liked the writing style but anything not furthering the plot seemed like poetically written bullshit tho... that is to say, I understood roughly 50% of this book lmao

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Jun 25, 2017 Laura marked it as to-read

Recommends it for: Dagny, Wanda

Shelves: fiction-19th-century, e-books, victorians, gutenberg, poetry

Free download available at Project Gutenberg. ...more

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Mar 04, 2020 R.K. Cowles rated it really liked it

Shelves: poetry-epics

3 3/4 stars

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Feb 05, 2016 Sarah added it · review of another edition

I'm teaching this epic poem in my Victorian Poetry class this month, which has given me a chance to read it again for the first time in several years. I first read Aurora Leigh as a first-year college student in 1994 and was utterly blown away by the fact that a Victorian poem addressed so frankly the kinds of questions I was thinking about as a young woman in the late twentieth century. What kind of work should I do in the world? What kind of work did the world need? Could a poet help make the ...more

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Dec 13, 2017 Courtney (courtney & books) rated it really liked it

Shelves: finished-in-2017

This is a Victorian epic poem that I had to read for my Victorian Literature class. While it was rather long and at times opaque, I really did enjoy it. I'm not a quote person, but I found myself underlining passages and connecting with this book. This book is rather fascinating, especially because of the cast of characters who are quite complex. I even wrote my final paper on this, so you know I enjoyed it. I would love to come back to this in the future and really enjoy and tear apart this tex ...more

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Nov 26, 2007 Melanie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brit-lit, victorian

I'm normally not a huge poetry fan (especially English poetry), but I make an exception for *Aurora Leigh.* A verse novel, an urban epic, a working wife and househusband: there's too much paradox here not to love it. ...more

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Oct 04, 2019 Maan Kawas rated it really liked it

I loved this verse-novel by Elizabeth Barrett Browning! The language is beautiful and flowing and the plot is engaging. The book addresses various themes and points, such as gender and stereotypes, social class, love, culture, and compassion.

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Oct 18, 2017 Robin rated it liked it

"Aurora Leigh" was meant to be Elizabeth Barrett Browning (EBB)'s crowning masterpiece. Whether it is or is not a masterpiece is up to the reader, I think. It is undoubtedly ambitious and unique. I think "Aurora Leigh" is a remarkable if imperfect epic poem about the value of the artist in society, the place of women in Victorian England, and Aurora's struggles to balance both those roles.

At 20, passionate, idealistic, and orphaned "Aurora Leigh" does the unthinkable--she rejects her wealthy cou "Aurora Leigh" was meant to be Elizabeth Barrett Browning (EBB)'s crowning masterpiece. Whether it is or is not a masterpiece is up to the reader, I think. It is undoubtedly ambitious and unique. I think "Aurora Leigh" is a remarkable if imperfect epic poem about the value of the artist in society, the place of women in Victorian England, and Aurora's struggles to balance both those roles.

At 20, passionate, idealistic, and orphaned "Aurora Leigh" does the unthinkable--she rejects her wealthy cousin's offer of marriage and decides to pursue life as a poet. Romney does not believe that she as a woman has the passion or ability to write great Art, and Aurora thinks he is too consumed with lofty ideals to be a good husband. The two cousins go their separate ways and are more often apart than together for the rest of the poem. But the tension and tone of Aurora's writings about him speak volumes about the status of their relationship--"It's complicated." Along the way Aurora must confront Romney's other loves--the luckless, saintly, and lower-class Marian Erle and crafty, sarcastic Lady Waldemar.

The Romney/Aurora relationship and the continuing saga of wrongs done to the long-suffering Marian (eventually, EBB, a character suffers to the point where we no longer care about their suffering--seriously) make for most of the plot. The rest is a discussion of the place of the artist in society, the struggles of a poet, and how being a woman both enhances and complicates all of the above. I've read that "Aurora Leigh" would be classified as a feminist or proto-feminist work. Whether it is or is not depends on how you define feminism. But EBB celebrates the Victorian model of womanhood--warm, maternal, loving. She does not seek to dismiss "typical" feminine traits but instead to embrace them. She feels that traits that her Victorian society would describe as feminine (read here: weak) would help her create art that would improve the world and touch the soul. This discussion is remarkable because I've never read anything that's so frank about the writing process--the author writing as a different author, talking about her craft, her struggles, her writer's block. The only comparison I can think of is Virginia Woolf's remarkable "A Room of One's Own." I can bet that "Aurora Leigh" inspired the latter.

While both narratives are interesting, they don't mix well. In fact, in my opinion, what derails "Aurora Leigh" as a masterpiece is the narrative itself. It is disjointed and even ham-strung by the poetic form itself. There is no narrative flow, and the climatic aspects of the narrative are buried within beautiful if bewildering poetry. EBB wants to write an epic poem--she has the poetry writing mastered but not the form. Her shorter poetry is absolutely superior.

It's an exhausting, long poem and not perhaps for everyone. But if you'd like a challenge and enjoy hearing a poet talk about what it means to be a poet, "Aurora Leigh" would be a good read for you. ...more

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Aug 17, 2010 Liz Santiago rated it it was amazing

I needed a break from my Gothic teen novels so decided to read this epic poem by one of my favorite poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I thought it was beautiful. It was a feminist story to some extent and a good attempt to describe what it is to be an artist/poet. I was touched by much of the imagery and eloquence in the writing. Was it an easy read, no. It took me a while to get through simply because I really had to concentrate on what I was reading. I guess it was a good thing I moved away fr ...more

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Nov 14, 2008 Christin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I think I have always secretly wanted to be EBB/Aurora Leigh and that is why this text about the profound power of writing and the staggering beauty of reading gives my soul hope. Plus, it's a novel in verse. Could YOU write a novel in verse? ...more

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Feb 27, 2019 Juliana rated it really liked it

Shelves: poetry, favourites, victober

My review: https://theblankgarden.com/2019/10/30... ...more

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Feb 20, 2019 A Mig rated it liked it

Shelves: poetry

A recent friend of mine told me, back in 1910, that "There is an infinitely finer English novel, written by a woman, than anything by George Eliot or the Brontes, or even Jane Austen, which perhaps you have not read. Its title is 'Aurora Leigh,' and its author E.B. Browning. It happens to be written in verse, and to contain a considerable amount of genuinely fine poetry. Decide to read that book through, even if you die for it. Forget that it is fine poetry. Read it simply for the story and the ...more

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Nov 14, 2020 Mary Mithrilil rated it really liked it

Shelves: poetry

First time I read an epic poem written by a woman: achievement unlocked. And what a journey this one is.
''I read a score of books on womanhood
To prove, if women do not think at all,
They may teach thinking.''
A study in womanhood, poetry, and art, set in Victorian society but with a diverse European character, Aurora Leigh is a catapult of revolutionary ideas that follow a young girl throughout her life as she discovers her passion for writing and disregard of societal norms, especially regarding ...more

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Apr 20, 2020 Jack rated it really liked it

Shelves: brit-lit, poetry, women, 19th-century

I had planned to take quarantine as a time to read more slowly and therefore give myself the opportunity to THINK.
Still, I enjoyed this novel-in-verse too much to make a labour of it, even when the labour is to my benefit. A grand defence of poetry and aestheticism against its fiercest rival...Socialism? Barrett Browning writes wholly of the 19th century, of her time. Of course, the past is neither dead nor past, and her themes have left me ponder, her style inticing me to read more and again. W ...more

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Jul 09, 2018 Kubra rated it really liked it

It is undoubtedly an important work, loaded with meaning, interesting as a female künstlerroman/bildungsroman or a feminist epic poem, but, Heavens, it was an awfully hard read.

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May 31, 2020 Molly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I don't know why more people haven't read this.

(I mean, I know why.... It's a Victorian novel in iambic pentameter.... But still...) ...more

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Jan 19, 2021 moominhanna rated it really liked it

I would have given this five stars, if the story had ended after the girls eloped to Italy together

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Apr 04, 2019 Alkisti rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Exquisite imagery and beautiful language. The first book in particular was magnificent! Unfortunately, the last ones did not create the same impression.

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Oct 28, 2007 Aileen rated it liked it · review of another edition

I am surprised to say that I really liked this. I think if asked before I read it if I would enjoy Victorian feminist epic poetry, I would have answered with a definitive no. The plot of this is a bit predictable, but there are some really lovely images in here. And I was also a bit shocked by how violent it all was - mostly in metaphor, though not entirely. Which I think is pretty interesting when you hold it up alongside the idea of poetry as a feminine thing - both gendered female, if a poem ...more

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Sep 16, 2007 Joanne rated it it was amazing

Readers should be greeted with a warning that this is a longer narrative poem than Paradise Lost. That being said, it's also a great story full of intrigue, references of Italy versus England, feminism, and literature. The love story, albeit very Jane Eyre, is also touching (although I'd like to imagine they're slightly more distant cousins than described). Aurora is a great female character and a wonderful individual in her own right. Her search for truth and poetry is admirable, as is the stor ...more

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Dec 29, 2010 JoAnn Jordan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2010

This is a great novel in verse. Though long the story is well told. I had missed this masterpiece earlier in life and am quite glad to find it now.

I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy love stories or poetry.

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Apr 22, 2007 Cody rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: victorianism-realism-naturalism

You'd think I'd eventually tire of reading about the plight of the struggling artist. Well, I guess I kind of have...but this is in verse...and gorgeously written! ...more

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Dec 25, 2007 Joseph Tepperman added it

so masterfully written! moreso than anything i've seen from her husband bob. ...more

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Dec 25, 2011 Diana rated it it was amazing

So much fun to read. Elizabeth Barrett Browning takes "the narrative" to the next level, while suggesting some revolutionary ideas for the 19th century. ...more

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About Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era.

Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Browning was educated at home. She wrote poetry from around the age of six and this was compiled by her mother, comprising what is now one of the largest collections extant of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15 Browning became ill, suffering from intense head an Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era.

Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Browning was educated at home. She wrote poetry from around the age of six and this was compiled by her mother, comprising what is now one of the largest collections extant of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15 Browning became ill, suffering from intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life, rendering her frail. She took laudanum for the pain, which may have led to a lifelong addiction and contributed to her weak health.

In the 1830s Barrett's cousin John Kenyon introduced her to prominent literary figures of the day such as William Wordsworth, Mary Russell Mitford, Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Thomas Carlyle. Browning's first adult collection The Seraphim and Other Poems was published in 1838. During this time she contracted a disease, possibly tuberculosis, which weakened her further. Living at Wimpole Street, in London, Browning wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844, producing poetry, translation and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and her work helped influence reform in child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth.

Browning's volume Poems (1844) brought her great success. During this time she met and corresponded with the writer Robert Browning, who admired her work. The courtship and marriage between the two were carried out in secret, for fear of her father's disapproval. Following the wedding she was disinherited by her father and rejected by her brothers. The couple moved to Italy in 1846, where she would live for the rest of her life. They had one son, Robert Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. Towards the end of her life, her lung function worsened, and she died in Florence in 1861. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.

Browning was brought up in a strongly religious household, and much of her work carries a Christian theme. Her work had a major influence on prominent writers of the day, including the American poets Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is remembered for such poems as "How Do I Love Thee?" (Sonnet 43, 1845) and Aurora Leigh (1856). ...more

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Quotes from Aurora Leigh

“Earth's crammed with heaven...
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” — 817 likes

“Books, books, books!
I had found the secret of a garret room
Piled high with cases in my father’s name;
Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out
Among the giant fossils of my past,
Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs
Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there
At this or that box, pulling through the gap,
In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,
The first book first. And how I felt it beat
Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books!” — 110 likes

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