Elizabeth Barrett Browning

In this blog, I will be summarizing and analyzing three different texts from the “Appendix B: Religion and Factory Reform” section of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Selected Poems. These texts include “Reviews” “The Guardian (22 January 1851), “Death of Mrs. Browning” by Samuel B. Holcombe, and “Mrs. Browning’s Poetry” by Hannah Lawrance. Not all of the reviews talked about EBB’s poetry, but all described a little how she wrote or who her influences were, and this is what I found to be interesting within the three separate reviews.

Summary:

Like I stated above, not all of these reviews critiqued her poetry, but all of the reviews did mention her influences or compared her poetry to other poets. We haven’t read much of EBB yet, but Lawrance states that EBB is “highly favored among women” (322). EBB talks about The Virgin Mary and how a mother should give so much love to her child, so this part of her poetry obviously pulls young women and grown women to read her poetry. Holcombe then compares EBB to the girl version of Shakespeare. “She is truly the Shakespeare among her sex; and yet, no women has written in a spirit of such genuine, intense, and pathetic womanliness…” (321). Going along with what Lawrence said about her talking about The Virgin Mary, Holcombe describes how she is a Christian poet. Not all of her pieces have Christianity in them, and she doesn’t use it too often, but Christianity is hidden secretly in her pieces. Then we have the Reviews who tell us that Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Tennyson, and her husband Mr. Browning are EBB’s idols. Even though I don’t know who two of these men are, I do believe that Mr. Browning had a big effect on EBB’s poetry. So yes, all of these texts are different, but they all describe EBB in a different way, and that what I found interesting about these different texts.

Analysis:

Like I stated above, we haven’t really read much of EBB’s poems, but from what the texts have said, I can see how each one connects. For example, when the “reviews” talk about her idols, I do agree that Mr. Browning was one of her idols because he was also a very well-known poet and I do believe that he influenced EBB to write poetry. This is why half of her poems in this book are about Mr. Browning and how she fell in love with him. Her poetry is different than Roberts and that’s a good thing because they aren’t writing about the same things, but if they are then they are written in a different way. And when Holcombe says that she’s like the women Shakespeare I can already start to see it. Maybe once we read a few more of her pieces it will be clear who she writes like, but I agree with Holcombe.