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Biographical information EssayRegarded by contemporary and new critics as one of the most notable female poets in Western literature, Elizabeth Barrett browning wrote Aurora Leigh at the height of her literary career, and the verse is deemed her master do in terms of poetics and tarradiddle. Part autobiography and part social criticism, the poem traces the life of an inclinewoman and poet, Aurora Leigh, and is frequently cited as a proto-feminist treatise for its portrayal of difficulties arising for female characters from traditionalistic determine and practices of English society. Brownings innovative use of genre, self-reference, and feminine perspective make Aurora Leigh a landmark of nineteenth-century literature. Biographical Information Browning had planned to write a smart in blank verse as archean as 1845, and had proposed that the subject would be a critical narrative of ordinary English life. At the age of Aurora Leighs publication in 1857, Browning, supported by her friendship and eventual marriage to Robert Browning in September of 1846, had recovered from a long period of poor health, family catastrophes, and isolation.In 1850, Sonnets from the Portuguese, written during her courtship with Browning, had been published to popular acclaim, and her reputation as a poet, especially of sentimental works, had grown. A son, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, had been born to the couple in 1849, and this seems to deliver rejuvenated Brownings artistic endeavors. The Brownings began to travel extensively and became involved in politics on the Continent Barrett Browning subsequently expressed in Aurora Leigh a c erstrn with social issues, particularly the rights of women and the poor, and revealed her familiarity with European and unblemished literature as well.Aurora Leigh, published in 1857, was the most successful of Brownings works from a commercialised standpoint the book had gone through nineteen editions by 1885. Plot and Major Chara cters A novel in verse, as Coventry Patmore called it, Aurora Leigh follows the life of its heroine through her birth and childhood in Italy, capable development, literary career, and personal relationships. At a young age, Aurora Leigh resists the conventional and complacent English values imposed on her by a maiden aunt who cares for her after the death of her parents, and she discovers the pleasures of literature.Her early fanciful compositions stir her ambitions to support herself through a poetic career, and in time she becomes moderately successful in capital of the United Kingdom literary circles. In the process of accomplishing this, Aurora rejects a marriage proposal from her cousin Romney Leigh, a wealthy philanthropist and owner of the family estate, who soon rescues a young woman named Marian Erle from poverty. The growing chemical bond between Romney and Marian is severed, however, by the unscrupulous Lady Waldemar, who is herself in love with Romney.Lady Waldemar co ntributes to Marians disappearance from London and her reappearance in a Paris brothel, where Marian is sexually assaulted and bears a child. Aurora, on her way to Italy, recognizes Marian in Paris and takes her and her child to Florence. When Romneys socialist Utopian community disastrously fails, he acknowledges the emptiness and delusion of conventional methods of philanthropy, and travels to Florence. After a series of misunderstandings in which Aurora believes Romney has already wed Lady Waldemar, Romney once again asks Aurora to marry him.This she does, recognizing that art needs to be aided by love and alliance in the process of self-realization. Major Themes Browning addressed several(prenominal) major social issues in the narrative of Aurora Leighthe relationship between art and individual self-fulfillment, the issue of class politics, and the issue of gender roles. The work suggests that individual freedom, regardless of class or gender, allows for inner development and t he cultivation of creative thinking and inspiration.However, the novel-poem shows sensitivity to early(a) aspects of the creative process, such as the background to the production of any artistic work and the source of creativity in turmoil and conflict. Furthermore, Aurora Leigh intricately weaves the political implications of Brownings own strong individualism and her emphasis on the actualization of ones lifes work into Aurora Leighs struggle to find her place, as a woman poet, in the traditional social order found in the poem.In access, the work focuses on the institutionalized sexism and classicism of the strait-laced age, and directs its severest criticism at conventional philanthropy as hypocritical and paternalistic. Also, Aurora Leigh depicts, through the character of Marian Erle, the horrific consequences of the abuse and neglect suffered by the poorparticularly poor women. The subplot of Marian and her child also censures the Victorian tendency to reject those who hav e been sexually attacked, and argues for greater concern for and treatment of the innocent victims. small ReceptionDespite its tremendous popular success, Aurora Leigh received mixed reactions from contemporary critics. Many, in addition to calling it immoral, found fault with its characterization, plot, and language others, however, found the work proof of Brownings poetic genius. The poem was mostly neglected by subsequent critics until the early 1930s, when Virginia Woolf s enthusiastic article on the poem was published. The ontogeny of feminist criticism helped spark renewed interest in the work, although Aurora Leigh is not unanimously judge as a precursor to modern feminism.Commenting on the poems conclusion in particular, many feminist critics have regarded Auroras acceptance of marriage as the beginning of her loss of independence. Others have found in the ending a radical deviation from traditional nineteenth-century thoughtinstead of losing her independence through ma rriage, Aurora gains a honour and satisfying life through the blending of her artistic achievement with the love and partnership of another.According to several twentieth-century critics, this innovation is echoed in Brownings look although contemporary reviewers criticized her unconventional poetic tendencies, more recent scholars consider her style to be innovative. Altogether, Aurora Leigh illuminates both Brownings artistic strengths and her weaknesses she is praised for her ability to express passionate emotion, yet she is criticized for choosing such an rob topic for Aurora Leigh as her highest convictions upon Life and Art. She is commended for her lyrical tone and innovative use of imagery, yet she is criticized for her dull style, improbable plot, and unrealistic characters. In light of fervent endorsements of the poem by such literary figures as Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf, Aurora Leigh is generally judged to be a masterwork with noticeable flaws and remains high ly significant to contemporary literary historians and critics.