Aurora Leigh (1856) is a novel in blank verse by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In nine books, the poet Aurora tells her own life: her childhood in Italy and England, her refusal to marry her cousin Romney, and her struggle to become a writer.
The story
Born in Florence to an English father and an Italian mother, Aurora is sent after their deaths to a cold aunt in England. Her cousin Romney, a social reformer, proposes to her but scorns women's poetry; she refuses him.
In London she becomes a poet. Romney's plan to marry a poor seamstress, Marian Erle, ends in disaster, and years later, blinded and humbled, he and Aurora are reunited in Italy.
A woman writer
The poem is a manifesto for women's right to an artistic vocation and a reflection on the poet's role in modern life.
Barrett Browning also deals boldly with poverty, prostitution and rape, through the story of Marian Erle.
Reception
The book was a best-seller, running through several editions in its first years, and was admired by Ruskin, who called it the greatest poem of the century.
Virginia Woolf, in an essay of 1931, helped revive interest in it after a long neglect.
Anecdotes
Dedicated to a friend
Barrett Browning dedicated the poem to her cousin and friend John Kenyon, who had helped bring her and Robert Browning together.
Written in Florence
She wrote most of the poem at Casa Guidi, her home in Florence, while raising her young son Pen.
Frequently asked questions
What is Aurora Leigh?
A novel in verse in nine books by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Who is Romney Leigh?
Aurora's cousin, a social reformer, whom she finally marries.
Who called it the greatest poem of the century?
John Ruskin.