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Aurora Leigh | Introduction

As early as 1844, Elizabeth Barrett wrote Robert Browning that she was thinking about writing a novel in verse form on modern themes. Several years later, she began work on Aurora Leigh (1857), which turned into one of the longest poems in the English language in its number of lines. Browning thought it her most mature work, and it turned out to be her biggest commercial success. Aurora Leigh deals with some of the major social problems of her age, particularly the difficulty of being a professional woman. There is a frank treatment in the story of the "fallen woman" in an effort to show an unwed mother as a victim and not necessarily someone to be condemned, as was the Victorian practice. The poem also reveals a distrust of socialist theory, in that Browning feared that communist-style communities would exclude artists and poets.

Aurora Leigh elicited much praise from the public and other poets, but professional reviewers found it coarse, vulgar, and highly flawed. Even those who admired the work found deficiencies and inconsistencies, while those who decried the book admitted that the attempt showed genius. Undeniably, Aurora Leigh was one of the most avant-garde publications of its day. A progressive thinker, Browning was also definite about her morality and the joy that romantic love had brought to her. Thus, this largely autobiographical poem does not discuss prostitution lightly, and the liberated poet decides in the end that the pursuit of one's art cannot bring to a woman's life the satisfaction found in an enduring, loving marriage. Modern readers of Browning are more familiar with her romantic poetry, particularly Sonnets from the Portuguese, her love lyrics to her husband. However, as evidenced by a 1996 Norton publication of Aurora Leigh, edited by Margaret Reynolds, feminist scholarship has resurrected interest in this verse novel and promoted a new appreciation of the talent and intellect of Browning.

Aurora Leigh Summary

First Book

As a personal narrative, Aurora Leigh begins when the central character is born in Italy to an English father and Tuscan mother. When Aurora Leigh's mother dies, the grieving father withdraws to a mountain cottage, where he educates Aurora in the classics amid the wonders of nature. However, when she is only thirteen, her father dies, and she is taken away from her beloved nurse and sent to England to live with a coldhearted maiden aunt who had not approved of Aurora's mother. There, Aurora is submitted to a conventional female education. Her only comforts are her father's books; her cousin, Romney Leigh; and Romney's friend, the painter Vincent Carrington, who talks of Italy.

Second Book

The expectation is that Aurora will marry Romney, heir to the family estates, and he proposes to her when she is twenty years old. Romney thinks that Aurora should join him in his work for social reform, but she believes that she has a right to her own vocational fulfillment and does not want to be just his helper. He scoffs at her artistic ambitions, thinking them of little value compared with his noble endeavors. Dismayed by his attitude, Aurora rejects Romney's proposal. Angered by this refusal, her Aunt Marjory disinherits her and dies shortly thereafter. Aurora heads to London nonetheless, determined to begin a new life and maintain her independence.

Third Book

Aurora loses touch with Romney over the seven years that she pursues her career as a writer in London. With only three hundred pounds a year on which to support herself and little income to be had from writing poetry, she works days as a prose writer and spends only evenings on poetry until her verse gains sufficient reputation to provide a living. Lady Waldemar, a wealthy widow, visits Aurora to tell her that Romney is going to marry Marian Erle, a lower-class woman he has rescued from her deathbed. He has found Marian a job as a seamstress and now wants to marry her in a socialist gesture to equalize the classes. Lady Waldemar wants Aurora to stop the wedding, but Aurora refuses to interfere. Instead, Aurora seeks out Marian. She hears Marian's story about the abusive parents who eventually abandoned her, leaving her to wander alone and ill until a stranger took her to a hospital, where she met Romney, who was making a charitable visit.

Fourth Book

Marian tells Aurora how, a year after first meeting Romney at the hospital, she encounters Romney again when Lucy, a fellow seamstress, dies. Romney proposes marriage to her with the idea that she will help him... ยป Complete Aurora Leigh Summary