BROWNING BARRETT, ELIZABETH. - English poetess, b. at Durham on 8 March 1806, d. at Florence on 30 June 1861. Her happy childhood, later nostalgically evoked, ended with an accident which, when she was fifteen, caused her a severe spinal affliction, the ruin of the family estate, and the tragic drowning of her brother Ralph. From the period of seclusion imposed by her illness, she escaped to follow, against her father’s wishes, the poet Robert Browning, whom she had met through literary acquaintances and who later became her husband. In Pisa and Florence, the rebellious E. B. found warmth of affection and, in part, restored health, enabling her to return to literary pursuits which had already made her well known.
A deeply emotional woman, she made her love for her husband the reason for her life and poetry the natural outlet of her spirit, as well as a mission of social redemption. She aligned herself with the Victorian humanitarian movement with *The Cry of the Children*, alongside a warning against the exploitation of childhood in factories. Deeply religious, she saw God above all in the humble and composed sacred lyrics, among which *Copper’s Grave* is notable. Her works, open to the most varied influences (Milton, Byron, Coleridge, Tennyson, Swinburne), include: *The Seraphim and Other Poems* (1838), in whose opening poem two seraphim converse hovering over the agonizing Redeemer; *Casa Guidi Windows* (1851), a song of the hopes and disappointments of the patriotic Risorgimento in Tuscany; *Aurora Leigh* (1857), a vast poem, a confession of a soul pondering ethical and social problems; *Sonnets from the Portuguese* (1847), a lyrical effusion in which E. B. expressed her most passionate cry and the highest possibilities of her art—not great, but sincere and deeply felt.