Robert Browning

1
Robert Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• A Literary Love Story

2
Robert Browning1812 - 1889

• Thought of as the most important Victorian poet
  after Tennyson.
• An adventurous and experimental poet.
• Grew up in a cultivated and well-mannered
  environment.
• An avid reader.
• Barely five years old when he writes his first
  poem.

3
He Meets Elizabeth Barrett

• In 1845, he meets the love of his lifeElizabeth.
• She is in poor health and living a life of
  unhappy seclusion because of her tyrannical and
  overprotective father.
• She is six years older than Robert.

4
The Love Story. . .

• The story of the love and courtship of Browning
  and Elizabeth Barrett is well known through the
  letters they exchanged and through Elizabeths
  own love sonnets.
• After sixteen months of frustrated courtship,
  Browning finally decided that Elizabeths father
  would never allow her to marry and that she had
  to be rescued for the sake of her own health
  and happiness.

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How Do I Love Thee. . .?

• They were secretly married in the autumn of 1846
  and eloped to Italy where they lived until her
  death in 1861.
• The Brownings were ideally happy in Italy and
  lived a life filled with happiness.
• Robert loved to study the famous paintings in
  Florence.
• Roberts literary imagination flourished as never
  before.

6
A Quote From Browning

• All morbidness of the soul is worth the souls
  study.

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Robert Brownings Style

• Use of dramatic monologue-imagined speakers utter
  their thoughts to implied listeners.
• An interest in psychology-a concern with the
  devious thinking and complex motives of the
  characters in his dramatic monologues.
• An openness to evil, abnormal and obsessive
  states of mind.

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Now for Elizabeths Story

• Born in 1806
• When she was fifteen, she suffered a spinal
  injury which, along with other afflictions left
  her bedridden for most of her life.
• Eldest child of a country squire, she spent her
  childhood playing in the countryside and reading.

• By the age of thirty-five, she was confined to
  her bedroom in the familys London home.
• She was a better known poet than Robert.
• Her verses caught the attention of Robert who
  said I love your verses with all my heart.

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The Story Continues

• Robert was convinced that her forty-four sonnets
  about their courtship should be published.
• She called them Sonnets from the Portuguese and
  they became very popular.

• After they moved to Italy, their love flourished.
• Gave birth to a son whom they nicknamed Pen,
  and both continued to write poetry.

10
Their Love for One Another

• Browning thought her sonnets were the finest
  sonnets in any language since Shakespeare.
• If thou love me, let it be for nought/Except for
  loves sake only. (Barrett Browning to Robert).

11
Sonnet 43

• How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
• I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
• My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
• For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
• I love thee to the level of every days
• Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
• I love thee freely as men strive for Right
• I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
• I love thee with the passion put to use
• In my old griefs, and with my childhoods faith.
• I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
• With my lost saintsI love thee with the breath,
• Smiles, tears, of all my life!and if God choose
• I shall but love thee better after death.