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Aurora Leigh
Aurora Leigh
Aurora Leigh
Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

Aurora Leigh

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this audiobook

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s classic poem, read by Diana Quick.

Written in blank verse, Aurora Leigh is Browning’s self-styled ‘novel in verse’, a first-person narration of the lives of Marian Erle and the eponymous Aurora. Travelling across Florence, London, and Paris, and playing off the works of Anne Louise Germaine de Staël and George Sand, Aurora Leigh is one of the greatest poems of the nineteenth century.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 26, 2015
ISBN9780008128951
Author

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) was an English poet. The daughter of a wealthy family—her father made his fortune as a slave owner in Jamaica, while her mother’s family owned and operated sugar plantations, mills, and ships—Browning eventually became an abolitionist and advocate for child labor laws. Her marriage to the prominent Victorian poet Robert Browning caused the final break between Browning and her family, after which she moved to Italy and lived there with Robert for the rest of her life. She began writing poems at a young age, finding success with the 1844 publication of Poems. Browning went on to be recognized as one of the foremost poets of early Victorian England, influencing such writers as Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is most famous for her Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of 44 love poems published in 1850, and Aurora Leigh, an 1856 epic poem described by leading Victorian critic John Ruskin as the greatest long poem written in the nineteenth century. Browning suffered from numerous illnesses throughout her life, eventually succumbing in Florence at the age of 55.

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Rating: 3.7761193880597017 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story of a woman's Wordsworthian search for her poetic voice. All the while, Browning gives the reader glimpses into 19th century society: gender norms, social concerns, politics, the role of art in society, and the responsibilities of the artist. Browning's language charms even at its less-than pristine moments.

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