#Aurora Leigh

[flowerytale]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Aurora Leigh

[umi-no-onnanoko]

[thelastofthebookworms]

@all-you-had-to-do-was-neigh

Others parts in my 'narrative poems' tag.

The second poll is almost ready but I take suggestions for the third !

Other poems in my 'poetry' tags (Frost, Angelou, British Romanticism so far, French poetry next).

Good luck making a pick. There are quite a few of my favorites here.

Aurora Leigh

The Ballad of the Harp Weaver

The Highwayman

Metamorphoses

Goblin Market

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Iliad

Beowulf

The Epic of Gilgamesh

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret room Piled high with cases in my father’s name; Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap, In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow, in the morning’s dark, An hour before the sun would let me read! My books!” ― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh.

[mitchiesclarity]

Eloise Bridgerton is exactly what Elizabeth Barrett Browning had in mind when writing Aurora Leigh

the last photo is “the tryst” by Arthur Hughes & is Aurora Leigh’s dismissal of Romney

[thebeautifulbook]

AURORA LEIGH by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[quotation--marks]

My father’s sister started when she caught My soul agaze in my eyes. She could not say I had no business with a sort of soul, But plainly she objected, - and demurred That souls were dangerous things to carry straight Through all the split saltpetre of the world.  She said sometimes ‘Aurora, have you done Your task this morning? have you read that book? And are you ready for the crochet here?’ As if she said ‘I know there’s something wrong; I know I have not ground you down enough To flatten and bake you to a wholesome crust For household uses and properties, Before the rain has got into my barn And set the grains a-spouting. What, you’re green With outdoor impudence? you almost grow?’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

[eminent-victoriana]

I was over-analysing the fact that Rochester goes blind and so does Romney Leigh. And then I remembered that as a teen, before I'd read either book, I also wrote a story with a romantic hero that goes blind. Projecting all my issues onto Victorian writers

[hasmoneanbulbasaur]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning reading Tennyson's The Princess

[yourbespokeartisanalapocalypse]

I've just acquired a copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's verse novel Aurora Leigh which I am very excited to start reading but can I just take a moment to draw attention to this arresting cover image.

It's a photograph of the French dancer Cléo de Mérode taken by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, a German-Jewish photographer who took some truly exquisite images. It's also highly anachronistic since neither model or photographer were even born when Aurora Leigh was published in 1856 (naughty Oxford University Press!) but every time I see it lying around the house I'm drawn to it. So a good cover in that sense I think!

Some more photographs by Reutlinger:

French Soprano Aino Ackté

French actress Geneviève Lantelme

Poet and dramatist Edmond Rostand (the guy who wrote Cyrano de Bergerac)

[cobwebs-in-sues-closet]

books, books, books!

aurora leigh, i. 833-44, elizabeth barrett browning

[105nt]

Book unwrapping. I have been looking for a copy of this under £20 for a looooooooong time. 😍

[wellconstructedsentences]

There's not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime If once rung on the counter of this world.

Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[kosmik-signals]

“Therefore, this same world  Uncomprehended by you must remain  Uninfluenced by you. Women as you are,  Mere women, personal and passionate,  You give us doting mothers, and chaste wives.  Sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints! We get no Christ from you,—and verily  We shall not get a poet, in my mind.”

                                                  Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

(via Poetry and Feminism | Poetry Foundation)

[lyndentree63]

Of writing many books there is no end; And I who have written much in prose and verse For others’ uses, will write now for mine,— Will write my story for my better self, As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book 1)