Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) was one of the most important poets of the nineteenth century and has recently undergone a major critical reappraisal. In this new study, Simon Avery examines a range of her poems, both well known and less familiar, drawn from across her career, in order to explore the concern with the search for a meaningful home which underpins much of her writing. In a series of interrelated chapters on Barrett Browning's religious poetry, love poetry, political poetry, and her major work, Aurora Leigh, he considers the ways in which the speakers and protagonists of her poems constantly search for a place of security and stability even though this often seems finally unattainable. Attention is also given to Barrett Browning's own search for a home in relation to inherited poetic models and traditions, and her establishment of an often radical poetics.