Kap & Pen

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). Born on March 6, 1806, in Durham, England, she was the  eldest of 12 children.  Elizabeth was educated at home by private tutors, learning Latin, Greek, and French.  Her father published her first work when she was 14.  (An interesting side note: her father forbade his children to marry!)  She wrote amid bouts of lung conditions, probably tuberculosis, which she fought all her life, beginning with a serious illness at age 15.  Browning became quite popular by the 1840’s.

In 1845, she met another poet, Robert Browning.  Because of her father, they courted secretly and eloped in 1846.  She was 40, he was 34.  While courting, Elizabeth wrote the sonnets that were published as Sonnets from the Portuguese, intimating they were translations, when actually, “Portuguese” was the pet name Robert had given Elizabeth.  They had a happy marriage and had one child, Robert Wiedemann, born in 1849.  Elizabeth died in her husband’s arms on June 29, 1861.  This romantic, Victorian woman penned those infamous first lines, “How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.”  Her works include:

• Aurora Leigh
• The Seraphim and Other Poems (her first collection, published in 1838)
• The Cry of the Children
• Translation of “Prometheus Bound”

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