Although Elizabeth Browning was raised in a wealthy household, her heart yearned for the opportunity to help those with less privileged backgrounds. Elizabeth, a political poet, used her works to portray her thoughts on political issues and influence the opinions of those who read her works. Because of this, Elizabeth Barrett Browning is most remembered for her dedication and courage to writing about social issues such as child labor, slavery and oppression of women.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806 to Edward Barrett Moulton and Mary Graham-Clarke. Elizabeth and her family resided in Jamaica for a large sum of years, where her father was the owner of sugar plantations. Being the owners of plantations, her family relied heavily on slave labor. This fact would later influence such works as, ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point’.
Elizabeth started writing at the age of six or eight and her first work, titled ‘On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man’, became published. Elizabeth’s father encouraged her writing by letting her sit in on her brother’s private lessons. At the age of fourteen her father insured the publication of her long Homeric poem titled ‘The Battle of Marathon’. Her first …show more content…
The main character, with the same name as the poem, is much like Browning and some call it the female counterpart to Wordsworth’s ‘The Prelude’. The heroine is an aspiring poet who grew up with her aunt who was an image of England’s “ideal woman”. Aurora’s aunt wants her to give up her dreams, become a proper woman, and marry a man of status, but her defiant personality enables Aurora to break free of the ‘perfect woman” image her aunt wants to be and becomes the person she wants to be. This poem defies the opinions of the time, showing Elizabeth’s views that women are more than wives, housemaids, and mothers, but their own person with interests, ideas, and