Table Of ContentElizabEth barrEtt browning
and ShakESpEarE
ContinUUM litErarY StUdiES SEriES
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ElizabEth barrEtt browning
and ShakESpEarE
‘thiS iS living art’
Josie billington
Continuum literary Studies
Continuum international publishing group
the tower building 80 Maiden lane
11 York road Suite 704
london SE1 7nX new York nY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Josie billington 2012
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
Josie billington has asserted her right under the Copyright, designs and patents act, 1988,
to be identified as author of this work.
iSbn: 978-1-4411-4890-2
british library Cataloguing-in-publication data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the british library.
library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication data
billington, Josie, 1961-
Elizabeth barrett browning and Shakespeare : ‘this is living art’ / Josie billington.
p. cm. - - (Continuum literary studies)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSbn 978-0-8264-9598-3 (hardback)
1. browning, Elizabeth barrett, 1806-1861- -Criticism and interpreation. 2. Shakespeare,
william, 1564-1616- -Criticism and interpreation. i. title. ii. Series.
pr4194.b55 2011
821'.8- -dc23
2011026411
typeset by Fakenham prepress Solutions, Fakenham, norfolk nr21 8nn
For tom, Matthew, Marianne and Sam
table of Contents
abbreviations vii
acknowledgements viii
introduction 1
Chapter 1 the poet at work 12
transitions, blanks and in-betweens 12
discipline and improvisation 23
the Sonnet 34
Chapter 2 Sonnets from the Portuguese 54
a drama of becoming 54
a new tradition? 62
a place to Stand and love in 68
Chapter 3 Aurora Leigh 84
the blank verse adventure 85
great Freedom within great order 87
‘this is living art’ 93
‘pauses Frequent to brokenness’ 98
aurora and hamlet 105
Aurora Leigh as a ‘problem play’ 111
Conclusion 125
bibliography 130
index 138
abbreviations
BC The Browning Correspondence (kelley and hudson
1984–)
Works The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (donaldson
et al 2010)
Collection The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction with other
Memorabilia (kelley and Coley 2004)
SP Sonnets from the Portuguese
AL Aurora Leigh
Sonnets Shakespeare’s Sonnets
all references to barrett browning’s poetry are from donaldson
et al 2010. all references to Shakespeare’s Sonnets are from
kerrigan, 1999, and, except where specified otherwise, references
to Shakespeare’s plays are from wells and taylor, 2001.
acknowledgements
i wish to thank colleagues and friends who read parts of this work
in its early stages, and whose model as literary thinkers and readers
of Shakespeare has been invaluable: Sarah Coley, philip davis and
Simon palfrey. i am grateful also to those who encouraged my idea
for this book when i was very tentatively starting out and who offered
extremely helpful pointers and direction: alison Chapman, Sandra
donaldson, Marjorie Stone, beverly taylor, herbert tucker. thanks
are also due to gail Marshall for first breaking ground in this area.
this study would have been impossible without three key factors:
firstly, philip kelley and betty Coley’s Reconstruction of the Browning
Collections; secondly, the equally exemplary scholarship of philip kelley,
ronald hudson and Scott lewis on the Brownings’ Correspondence;
thirdly, the rich resources of three fine libraries – the armstrong-
browning library, baylor University, waco, texas; new York public
library; and wellesley College library, boston. the splendid new
pickering & Chatto edition of barrett browning’s Collected Works was
published when this study was already quite advanced but has proved
a trusty resource and companion in the book’s final stages. i would
also like to thank the armstrong-browning library for awarding me
a visiting Fellowship, and the University of liverpool for granting
me leave to take up the Fellowship and for helping to fund library
visits. thanks are also due to Joanne Shattock for her support of my
research funding applications. Finally, i owe a great debt of gratitude
to the welcome and generosity extended to me by staff at the libraries
i visited, and for their knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm. thanks
to: Cynthia burgess, Christi klempnauer, rita patteson, Melvin
Schuetz, and kathryn brogdon, at baylor; isaac gewirtz and Stephen
Crook, at nYpl; Mariana oller and ruth rogers at wellesley. i
am also grateful to these libraries, as well as to Eton College, for
permission to publish extracts from barrett browning’s manuscripts.
introduction
in october 1843, in response to the request from her friend
and collaborator richard hengist horne that she provide a
‘biographical Sketch’, Elizabeth barrett wrote:
the public do not care enough for me to care at all for my
biography. if you say anything of me … it must be as a writer of
rhymes & not as the heroine of a biography … Most of my events
& nearly all my intense pleasures have past in my thoughts. i wrote
verses … very early … & from that day to this, poetry has been a
distinct object with me – an object to read think & live for … and
for the rest, you see that there is nothing to say. it is a ‘blank, my
lord’.1 (BC, vii, 353–4)
written two years before the commencement of her famous
correspondence and love affair with robert browning, the poet’s
self-accounting in this letter offers a salutary check to the popular
conception of barrett browning as ringletted invalid turned
romantic heroine.2 it also presents a challenge to the academic-
critical counter-narrative which emerged at the end of the twentieth
century of barrett browning as the founder of feminist poetics. the
injunction (‘it must be’) that she be regarded more as poet than
person, writer than woman, creator than creature, has been largely
(if inadvertently) betrayed in biographical accounts of her poetic
career. the critical-ideological debate around barrett browning’s
credentials as a feminist writer have been important and necessary
over the last two decades in rescuing her work from the unjust
neglect into which it had fallen in the twentieth century and in
establishing the significance of her oeuvre in current configura-
tions of victorian culture. one consequence of the emphasis of
this debate, however, is that barrett browning’s creative practices,
