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A review by lesliecalhoun
Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh is to Elizabeth Barrett Browning as the Prelude is to William Wordsworth--thus is the poetry class description. That statement has much truth though, since Aurora Leigh Browning's version of the poet's journey. However, her poetic journey is markedly different from Wordsworth's in that she focuses on the woman's journey and presents her story as an epic narrative in novel format. Aurora Leigh, the poem's heroine, struggles with what she feels is her calling to poetry, for she has to simultaneously fight the preconceptions placed on her by men. She never knew her mother, and her father somewhat encouraged her to be brought up by nature and books. These offered much for her education, but her dead mother's portrait also had a great impact on her imagination and formation. When she's sent to live with her aunt, she is practically forced to fit into the mold of women referred to as the cult of domesticity. Gradually, however, she revolts against her aunt's desires and pursues her poetic calling, rejecting a marriage proposal in the process. After moving to London, she meets Marian Erle, who has the greatest impact on her yet. Marian, a young woman on the extreme opposite social side from Aurora, opens Aurora to the ideas of creativity and hope that poetry offers in a world of pain and cruelty. For a brief time, these two women are separated, but Aurora finds Marian again in Paris and takes her with her to Italy, where the story began.
Aurora is somewhat of an interesting character, but as a reader, I grew impatient with her for several reasons. First of all, she seems to be a static character except for a sudden transformation within the last few pages of the book. The novel is riddled with her intellectual musings, which are often difficult to plow through. As an aspiring poet, Aurora tends to make use of elaborate literary devices, some of which seem unnecessary and distracting to the story. With that said, Browning was writing in a different time, and "higher speech" was probably called for as a source of great poetic genius. That, and Browning, much like Leigh, was trying to break the pattern of women and become a great poet despite all criticism.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the characters Romney Leigh and Marian Erle. Romney, who proposes to both Aurora and Marian, starts out as a die-hard philanthropist who tends to sacrifice his soul and very happiness in order to accept what he feels is a role unique to him in which he rescues the poor and needy. In some cases, he is actually helpful, but he goes too far in others. He rescues Marian from a life on the street, but then proposes to her mainly out of a desire to create a tie between their social classes. His proposal to Aurora is similarly based on social good instead of love. However, after a terrible ordeal concerning a colossal failure of one of his philansteries, he undergoes the completion of his change. As he speaks to Aurora in the final book, he repents of his earlier ignorance and explains that he is blind but now can see.
Marian Erle is a fascinating character with physical traits similar to Browning herself. Although Marian does not undergo any serious transformations, she offers a dramatic background to the central story and provides the catalyst that encourages both Romney's and Aurora's change. Her experiences tug at the reader's heartstrings more than Aurora's inward monologues of her struggles. Through most of the story, Marian is portrayed as a victim of the richer classes and gives Aurora a living example that she does not really have it that bad in the world. Marian is alive at the end of the book, but she explains to Romney and Aurora that she is dead and lives only to love her child. Perhaps the leading factors that affected her life were her lack of a real mother and the cruelty of men and the preying of older women upon her. At the end, she is left as just Marian. Aurora, who also didn't have a mother and didn't have good "step-in" mothers, also struggled with how to deal with men and how to love, but her story ends more happily than Marian's.
Aurora is somewhat of an interesting character, but as a reader, I grew impatient with her for several reasons. First of all, she seems to be a static character except for a sudden transformation within the last few pages of the book. The novel is riddled with her intellectual musings, which are often difficult to plow through. As an aspiring poet, Aurora tends to make use of elaborate literary devices, some of which seem unnecessary and distracting to the story. With that said, Browning was writing in a different time, and "higher speech" was probably called for as a source of great poetic genius. That, and Browning, much like Leigh, was trying to break the pattern of women and become a great poet despite all criticism.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the characters Romney Leigh and Marian Erle. Romney, who proposes to both Aurora and Marian, starts out as a die-hard philanthropist who tends to sacrifice his soul and very happiness in order to accept what he feels is a role unique to him in which he rescues the poor and needy. In some cases, he is actually helpful, but he goes too far in others. He rescues Marian from a life on the street, but then proposes to her mainly out of a desire to create a tie between their social classes. His proposal to Aurora is similarly based on social good instead of love. However, after a terrible ordeal concerning a colossal failure of one of his philansteries, he undergoes the completion of his change. As he speaks to Aurora in the final book, he repents of his earlier ignorance and explains that he is blind but now can see.
Marian Erle is a fascinating character with physical traits similar to Browning herself. Although Marian does not undergo any serious transformations, she offers a dramatic background to the central story and provides the catalyst that encourages both Romney's and Aurora's change. Her experiences tug at the reader's heartstrings more than Aurora's inward monologues of her struggles. Through most of the story, Marian is portrayed as a victim of the richer classes and gives Aurora a living example that she does not really have it that bad in the world. Marian is alive at the end of the book, but she explains to Romney and Aurora that she is dead and lives only to love her child. Perhaps the leading factors that affected her life were her lack of a real mother and the cruelty of men and the preying of older women upon her. At the end, she is left as just Marian. Aurora, who also didn't have a mother and didn't have good "step-in" mothers, also struggled with how to deal with men and how to love, but her story ends more happily than Marian's.