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torts's review
4.0
Victorian feminist epic poetry? Yes.
"Apologise for atheism, not love"
-Aurora Leigh to Lady Waldemar
"Apologise for atheism, not love"
-Aurora Leigh to Lady Waldemar
mtreads's review
5.0
a MONSTER to get through. i hated it. but the ending made me realize why i needed to read this. poetry matters, man. im very mind blown rn and will def read this again later on. left the page with a sense of conviction.
also, very quotable! there’s a twitter bio or yearbook quote for u in there somewhere.
also, very quotable! there’s a twitter bio or yearbook quote for u in there somewhere.
lizshayne's review against another edition
4.0
I am not very good at appreciating poetry, which is why I was so shocked to discover that I really liked this book. Then I realized that Aurora Leigh is a Victorian Novel in blank verse, so of course I would love it. Passions, drama, noble heroes redefining the meaning of the gentleman, the unending struggle with being a woman and a person.
Yep, Aurora Leigh is Jane Eyre in verse. And it was awesome!
Yep, Aurora Leigh is Jane Eyre in verse. And it was awesome!
readingthroughthelists's review against another edition
4.0
"Aurora Leigh, be humble. Shall I hope/
To speak my poems in mysterious tune/
With man and nature?"
Here in this question is the novel's entire theme. It is Aurora's one desire to write poems beautiful and true. Poetry awakens her orphaned heart, poetry sets her soul on fire. This lengthy novel-poem is the story of a soul, a soul made beautiful by its love for art.
Lecturers and professors will pull out many other elements of the work: its feminist leanings, its reaction against socialistic movements, its treatment of the lower classes, all of which are valid points of consideration. Yet as happens all too often, these elements are blown up, magnified until they envelop the whole work. "Aurora Leigh is a proto-feminist piece showing a strong independent female trying to make her way in the world and succeeding," they say, or perhaps "Aurora Leigh fails to speak on behalf of women, as Aurora's poetic voice subsumes Marian Erle's story and fails to represent the lower classes."
Each of these arguments has merit, but at the core, one must remember that this work is a painting, a map-sketch of Aurora's soul. The characters that shape it come in and go out, but in the end it is still about her. Her and the meaning and merit of art.
It's a weighty work, a weighty topic, and not at all a quick and easy read. Like all good poetry, it takes work and investment, but I found it well worth the time. The words are quick, delicate, and delightful, like letting your dessert melt on your tongue and then washing it down with a good sip of tea.
By all means, read Aurora Leigh. If (like me) you are reading for school, dig deep into the meaning, into Aurora's soul. Take it all in, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Take in Aurora's soul.
Favorite quotes:
"We get no good/ By being ungenerous, even to a book/ and calculating profits,--so much help/ By so much reading. It is rather when/ We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge/ Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound/ Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth--/ 'Tis then we get the right good from a book."
"...I would rather take my part/ With God's dead, who afford to walk in white/ Yet spread His glory, then keep quiet here/ And gather up my feet from even a step/ For fear to soil my gown in so much dust./ I choose to walk at all risks."
"Let others miss me! Never miss me God!"
"But poets should/ Exert a double vision; should have eyes/ To see near things as comprehensively/ As if afar they took their point of sight,/ And distant things as innately deep/ As if they touched them. Let us strive for this."
"...breathe me upward, Thou in me/ Aspiring who art the way, the truth, the life/ That no truth henceforth seem indifferent/ No way to truth laborious and no life/ Not even this life I live, intolerable!"
"Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease."
"...Beloved, let us love so well/ Our work shall still be better for our love/ And still our love be sweeter for our work."
To speak my poems in mysterious tune/
With man and nature?"
Here in this question is the novel's entire theme. It is Aurora's one desire to write poems beautiful and true. Poetry awakens her orphaned heart, poetry sets her soul on fire. This lengthy novel-poem is the story of a soul, a soul made beautiful by its love for art.
Lecturers and professors will pull out many other elements of the work: its feminist leanings, its reaction against socialistic movements, its treatment of the lower classes, all of which are valid points of consideration. Yet as happens all too often, these elements are blown up, magnified until they envelop the whole work. "Aurora Leigh is a proto-feminist piece showing a strong independent female trying to make her way in the world and succeeding," they say, or perhaps "Aurora Leigh fails to speak on behalf of women, as Aurora's poetic voice subsumes Marian Erle's story and fails to represent the lower classes."
Each of these arguments has merit, but at the core, one must remember that this work is a painting, a map-sketch of Aurora's soul. The characters that shape it come in and go out, but in the end it is still about her. Her and the meaning and merit of art.
It's a weighty work, a weighty topic, and not at all a quick and easy read. Like all good poetry, it takes work and investment, but I found it well worth the time. The words are quick, delicate, and delightful, like letting your dessert melt on your tongue and then washing it down with a good sip of tea.
By all means, read Aurora Leigh. If (like me) you are reading for school, dig deep into the meaning, into Aurora's soul. Take it all in, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Take in Aurora's soul.
Favorite quotes:
"We get no good/ By being ungenerous, even to a book/ and calculating profits,--so much help/ By so much reading. It is rather when/ We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge/ Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound/ Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth--/ 'Tis then we get the right good from a book."
"...I would rather take my part/ With God's dead, who afford to walk in white/ Yet spread His glory, then keep quiet here/ And gather up my feet from even a step/ For fear to soil my gown in so much dust./ I choose to walk at all risks."
"Let others miss me! Never miss me God!"
"But poets should/ Exert a double vision; should have eyes/ To see near things as comprehensively/ As if afar they took their point of sight,/ And distant things as innately deep/ As if they touched them. Let us strive for this."
"...breathe me upward, Thou in me/ Aspiring who art the way, the truth, the life/ That no truth henceforth seem indifferent/ No way to truth laborious and no life/ Not even this life I live, intolerable!"
"Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease."
"...Beloved, let us love so well/ Our work shall still be better for our love/ And still our love be sweeter for our work."
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