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 study, Simon Avery considers a range of her poems, drawn from across her career, in order to examine the concern with the search for a meaningful home which underpins much of her writing. In a series of interrelated chapters of Barrett Browning’s religious poetry, love poetry, political poetry, and her major work, Aurora Leigh, he explores the way in which 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.