During this time she met and corresponded with the writer Robert Browning, who admired her work. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth.īrowning's volume Poems (1844) brought her great success. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and her work helped influence reform in child labour legislation.

Living at Wimpole Street, in London, Browning wrote prolifically between 18, producing poetry, translation and prose. During this time she contracted a disease, possibly tuberculosis, which weakened her further. Browning's first adult collection The Seraphim and Other Poems was published in 1838. In the 1830s Barrett's cousin John Kenyon introduced her to prominent literary figures of the day such as William Wordsworth, Mary Russell Mitford, Samuel Taylor Coleridge Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Thomas Carlyle. She took laudanum for the pain, which may have led to a lifelong addiction and contributed to her weak health. At 15 Browning became ill, suffering from intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life, rendering her frail. She wrote poetry from around the age of six and this was compiled by her mother, comprising what is now one of the largest collections extant of juvenilia by any English writer. The sonnets remain a testament to a love that seems rare and precious, and the truth of these beautiful poems lives on.Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era.īorn in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Browning was educated at home. The Barrett-Brownings had a long and seemingly blissful marriage, with Elizabeth dying in Italy, in his arms, in 1861. The 13th sonnet - 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways' - has become one of the world’s favourite love poems.īarrett-Browning captures all the joy and innocence of a passionate love as well as the doubt and fear - she was amazed that Browning, six years her junior and full of health and vigour, could love her as much as he professed to. Written as petrarchan sonnets over the two years following their secret marriage and flight to Italy, these are some of the best loved and most moving love poems ever written. The love that burgeons from this first visit is chronicled in Sonnets from the Portuguese - Browning called her his 'Portuguese' in reference to her dark skin and almost black hair. The poems prompt a letter from Robert Browning in praise of her work, which so touches her that she agrees to let him into her voluntary seclusion. It begins in 1844 with Elizabeth Barrett, closeted in her room for five years through ill health and forbidden from marrying by her nonconformist father, publishing the most recent of her highly successful literary works, a collection of poetry. The love affair between Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and Robert Browning is one of the most famous in literature.

Sonnets from the portuguese 21