Aurora Leigh

After the revelation of the circumstances surrounding the birth of Marian’s child, Aurora is forced to reflect upon the plight of women in such a difficult position, and in the process, she must also confront her own internalized misogyny, which she carries inside her like a child. As she states, “It seems as if I had a man in me, / Despising such a woman” (Lines 213-14). This quote is particularly significant in its feminist essence, and such contemplations once again prove Barrett Browning’s work to be far ahead of her time. For such a privileged woman to acknowledge that misogynistic prejudices can become so deeply ingrained in a female psyche is a radical idea in this particular time frame, and thus, Barrett Browning’s determination to explore so many facets of Female Identity and Value in the Victorian Era renders Aurora Leigh a ground-breaking work of proto-feminism. Yet even within the implied chagrin of such musings, Aurora takes care to inject a note of strength, pride, and triumph and reflects, “‘Tis our woman’s trade / To suffer torment for another’s ease. / The world’s male chivalry has perished out, / But women are knights-errant to the last […] Put away this weakness” (Lines 223-27). With this bold metaphor that casts women in the roles of classic heroes, the poet deliberately enacts a reversal of the prevailing misogyny that dominates British society.

Aurora’s period of melancholy in Italy at the end of Book 7 is characteristic of the Romantic poets, for whom the elegiac was a recognized register. Indeed, from Wordsworth to Keats, each Romantic poet made it a point to indulge in fits of melancholy within the verses of their poetry, wallowing in the intensity of sorrow as often as they reveled in moments of joy, for within The Conceptual Hallmarks of the Romantic Movement, emotion itself was often prized far more highly than the mechanical, linear progression of reason. Within this distinctive philosophy, nature’s sublimity is designed to inspire profound emotions in its human inhabitants. Thus, whether the poet is admiring nature’s beauty or philosophizing about the evidence of death that lies within its cycles, realizing a sense of its grandeur becomes a chief focus of the Romantic style to which Barrett Browning’s work belongs. The poet therefore uses Aurora’s frequent employment of pastoral imagery as a means to contemplate the spiritually ineffable presence that is believed to exist beyond the known world. Caught within her own melancholy in Book 7, however, Aurora struggles to connect with the concept of the sublime and instead falls humbly to her knees in daily prayer, saying dejectedly, “So many Tuscan evenings passed the same” (Line 1273).