Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Master of the sonnet

March 6, 1998
Web posted at: 3:05 p.m. EST (2005 GMT)

(CNN) -- "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." You may not readily know who wrote that line from Sonnet 43, but she is the master of ways to say "I love you." Though Friday is Elizabeth Barrett's birthday, she is mostly remembered on Valentine's Day when lovers use her words to express their feelings.

Browning -- the author of such works as "Sonnets from the Portuguese" and "Aurora Leigh" -- is herself the subject of a rather romantic love story.

She married fellow poet Robert Browning when she was a semi-invalid and nearly 40. Barrett's illness stemmed from a childhood virus likened to the measles from which she never fully recovered.

Browning had come to see her when she was ill and the two talented writers fell in love. Forbidden to marry by a possessive father, Elizabeth secretly married Browning and stole away to Italy. Barrett's father never spoke to her again.

The Brownings courtship and marriage were the subject of the play "The Barretts of Wimpole Street."

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Barrett, the fourth of twelve children, was a child prodigy, excelling at Latin and Greek, and able to read French, Italian, Portuguese and other languages. She was very determined to become a poet. At 20, she began to become established amongst literary circles in London.

Born March 6, 1806, near Durham, England, Barrett came from a very wealthy family, even by today's standards. The Barrett's fortune was made from many Jamaican sugar plantations worked by slaves. After a series of misfortunes and the end of slavery, the family fortune dwindled considerably and the family estate was sold.

Barrett gained strength in Italy's climate and she continued to write. She enjoyed popularity equivalent to that of her husband and even more highly regarded than he was. She wrote the verse-novel Aurora Leigh, which is highly acclaimed as a strong feminist work, at the age of 50.

She died at the age of 55 in Florence, Italy on June 29, 1861.

Biblio-file

"The Battle of Marathon" (circa 1818) "The Rose and Zephyr" (1825 - first published work) "An Essay on Mind" (1826) "Prometheus Bound" (1833) "The Seraphim and Other Poems" (1838) Wrote "De Profundis" (1840) "Queen Annelida and False Arcite" (1840) "The Cry of the Children" (1842) Two-volume edition of poems (1844) Two-volume edition of poems, including "Sonnets from the Portuguese" (1850) "Casa Guidi Windows" (1851) "Aurora Leigh" (1857) Poems Before Congress (1860) Posthumous publication of last poems, including "De Profundis" (1862)

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