During the early 1800’s (1803-1815) the Napoleonic war was waging in Europe. On June 1st, 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte was beginning to invade Britain. During this war, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a successful young poet and is known for “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. Browning had a strong outlook on politics and mainly wrote about her love for her husband. This essay will be examining the life, the works, and the impacts of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Elizabeth was born on March 6th, 1806 in Durham, UK. She was “the eldest child of prosperous merchant family that owned a large estate in Herefordshire England”(Encyclopedia). Her father, Edward Moulton Barrett, was very strict and enforced school and disapproved…show more content… Casa Guidi Windows is mainly about Italian political views, which Elizabeth had a huge interest in. It dramatizes two revolutions, “For Barrett Browning, the Florentine Civic guard and the Austrian army embodied two distinct historical possibilities.”(Barnes) Casa Guidi Windows and Poems before Congress both expressed her strong political passion and not many of them are read now. They both caused critics to overlook Sonnets from the Portuguese. “Armstrong reminds us that the double poem emerges at a moment when Victorian poets and readers were beginning to doubt ‘teleological’ worldviews”(Barnes). In these poems, she isn’t speaking about the future or the past of Florence, she is simply looking out into the world. “Revolutions are hardly ever realized in single moments, single years, or discrete turning points. Elizabeth Barrett Browning stresses this historical reality in letters and poems…”(Barnes). In Casa Guidi Windows, Browning speaks of children in the streets singing “Casa Guidi Windows” in the name of Italy. Browning’s take on the Risorgimento or the ideology and literary movement that help to arouse the national consciousness of the Italian people, and it lead to events that freed the Italian states.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning has made an impact on poetry since she was a very young girl. She has had an impact since “Sonnets from the Portuguese” to “Seraphim and Other Poems” to “Casa Guidi Windows”. Whether it was an impact of romantic poetry or an impact on political views, Browning has done it. She then later married Robert Browning, whom “Sonnets from the Portuguese” was mostly about. Elizabeth was admired by many huge poets such as Edgar Allan Poe and many
