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Dared & Done: Marriage Of Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning
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Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
Author: Julia Markus
Publisher: Ohio University Press
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Our Price: $12.76
You Save: $ 3.19 ( 20% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
Author: Julia Markus
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Average Customer Rating:
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Dared & Done: Marriage Of Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.809
EAN: 9780821412466
ISBN: 0821412469
Label: Ohio University Press
Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 390
Publication Date: 1998-11-15
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Studio: Ohio University Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.809
EAN: 9780821412466
ISBN: 0821412469
Label: Ohio University Press
Manufacturer: Ohio University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 390
Publication Date: 1998-11-15
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Studio: Ohio University Press
Editorial Review of Dared & Done: Marriage Of Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning
A Riveting and brilliant work of biography. The story of two great English poets, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, whose work was immediately recognized and adored by their contemporaries, whose courtship ranks with the great love stories of all time -- and in whose marriage romance was not merely sustained but intensified.
We enter their story through the sealed Victorian world of the Barretts of Wimpole Street: Elizabeth, at thirty-nine, a poet of international fame, a child prodigy who had grown to be a middle-aged spinster, a woman for whom romantic love seemed not to be possible, confined by illness, morphine, and the tyranny of her father, scion of rich Jamaican slaveholders, rum and sugar traders.
It is to this fortress that Robert Browning, already an admired young poet and playwright, already a devotee of Elizabeth's, lays siege. ("I love your verses," he had written Elizabeth in his first letter to her, long before they met. "I love your verses with all my heart -- and I love you too.") And miraculously Elizabeth let life in.
Julia Markus chronicles their extraordinary courtship, their marriage in secret (Browning to Elizabeth: "How you have dared and done all this ... for my only sake?"), and their radiant honeymoon in Italy.
Markus shows us how the political events of the times inspired the great dramatic monologues of Robert's middle years and how Italy's stormy reunification inspired Elizabeth's later work.
We come to see Elizabeth as an artist with a fierce and final confidence in poetry and its effect on the poets' lives. We see husband and wife celebrate the birth of their son, Robert Wiedemann "Pen" Barrett Browning (Browning to her sisters: "I sate by [Elizabeth] as much as I was allowed, and I shall never forget what I saw, tho' I cannot speak about it").
We see them among their artist/writer friends: in London with Tennyson, Thackeray, Rossetti, and others; in Rome with William Story, the American lawyer, poet, sculptor; with Harriet Hosmer, the stonecutter, who was one of the models for Aurora Leigh; with Charlotte Cushman, the American actress, who held readings of Elizabeth's novel in verse. We see Elizabeth in Paris meeting her heroine George Sand, whose society of socialists and theatrical types Robert described as "ragged Red."
We come to understand Elizabeth's dependence on the ever-present drug in her life ("I should not be alive except by help of my morphine") and her constant battle with depression. And we see Elizabeth, encouraged by a woman with whom she was infatuated, move from interest to obsession with spiritualism, a cause that became the only source of serious dissension between the Brownings.
We follow the course of their rich marriage, from the beginning when each saw the other as a brilliant poet, a compassionate and strangely similar heart, through the years in which they discovered each other's differences, each remaining a complex and thrilling human being to the other.
To tell their story, Markus for the first time makes use of much of Elizabeth's unpublished correspondence, amid a wealth of other documents. She delves fully into the Brownings' Creole background and shows how it affected their lives and their work (Elizabeth was the first of the Jamaican Barretts to be born in England in many generations).
Brilliantly interweaving the Brownings' own words with her authentic and perceptive narrative, Julia Markus brings these two great poets -- their marriage, their work, their times -- alive as never before.
We enter their story through the sealed Victorian world of the Barretts of Wimpole Street: Elizabeth, at thirty-nine, a poet of international fame, a child prodigy who had grown to be a middle-aged spinster, a woman for whom romantic love seemed not to be possible, confined by illness, morphine, and the tyranny of her father, scion of rich Jamaican slaveholders, rum and sugar traders.
It is to this fortress that Robert Browning, already an admired young poet and playwright, already a devotee of Elizabeth's, lays siege. ("I love your verses," he had written Elizabeth in his first letter to her, long before they met. "I love your verses with all my heart -- and I love you too.") And miraculously Elizabeth let life in.
Julia Markus chronicles their extraordinary courtship, their marriage in secret (Browning to Elizabeth: "How you have dared and done all this ... for my only sake?"), and their radiant honeymoon in Italy.
Markus shows us how the political events of the times inspired the great dramatic monologues of Robert's middle years and how Italy's stormy reunification inspired Elizabeth's later work.
We come to see Elizabeth as an artist with a fierce and final confidence in poetry and its effect on the poets' lives. We see husband and wife celebrate the birth of their son, Robert Wiedemann "Pen" Barrett Browning (Browning to her sisters: "I sate by [Elizabeth] as much as I was allowed, and I shall never forget what I saw, tho' I cannot speak about it").
We see them among their artist/writer friends: in London with Tennyson, Thackeray, Rossetti, and others; in Rome with William Story, the American lawyer, poet, sculptor; with Harriet Hosmer, the stonecutter, who was one of the models for Aurora Leigh; with Charlotte Cushman, the American actress, who held readings of Elizabeth's novel in verse. We see Elizabeth in Paris meeting her heroine George Sand, whose society of socialists and theatrical types Robert described as "ragged Red."
We come to understand Elizabeth's dependence on the ever-present drug in her life ("I should not be alive except by help of my morphine") and her constant battle with depression. And we see Elizabeth, encouraged by a woman with whom she was infatuated, move from interest to obsession with spiritualism, a cause that became the only source of serious dissension between the Brownings.
We follow the course of their rich marriage, from the beginning when each saw the other as a brilliant poet, a compassionate and strangely similar heart, through the years in which they discovered each other's differences, each remaining a complex and thrilling human being to the other.
To tell their story, Markus for the first time makes use of much of Elizabeth's unpublished correspondence, amid a wealth of other documents. She delves fully into the Brownings' Creole background and shows how it affected their lives and their work (Elizabeth was the first of the Jamaican Barretts to be born in England in many generations).
Brilliantly interweaving the Brownings' own words with her authentic and perceptive narrative, Julia Markus brings these two great poets -- their marriage, their work, their times -- alive as never before.
Customer Reviews of Dared & Done: Marriage Of Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Stranger Truths Than Poetry
Review: Those who recall the Barretts of Wimpole Street may remember a pairing of upper echelon Victorian poets, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, who lived a life together as strange as anything in their poetry. So strange, in fact, as to have rather fallen out of history, as their fashion faded, as if too big or awkward for the flow of it. Today the fame of the Brownings, in life and in verse, is no longer common currency in the popular fancy or other than among specialists, but in their day they were the talk of the town, in London and Florence, at least, and deservedly so.
In brief, their story ran like this: She was the London home-bound invalid daughter of a father who, from a Jamaican slave-owning planter family, eccentrically refused to let any of his many offspring marry and bear children, on threat of disinheritance, apparently, it is suggested, because of a suspicion of dark slave-blood in his family tree and a fear of perpetuating it. Her sequestered illness, whatever it may have been, never adequately diagnosed, apparently, left her with nothing worthwhile in her fallow young life but an urge to express her spirit through a marvellous poetic gift, which, magnified by the mystery swirling around her personal life, made her famous enough to attract the infatuated attention of another poet, Robert Browning, who thus fell in love with her at second hand, sought out and courted her in secrecy, won her heart and eloped with her to Italy, where they lived out their marriage safe from her wealthy and powerful father's wrath. In Italy both their love and their poetry flourished, bringing fame, the fellowship of the Euro-American cultural cogniscenti of the age and, eventually, a living, to the pair of them, and in due time a beautiful healthy son to dote upon. Theirs was, in short, a love story for the ages, with perils, pathos and passion enough and to spare. In other words, even in Victorian times, you couldn't have scripted such stuff as this, at least not credibly.
Not that life was all lollipops and roses for the Brownings, of course. They lived through all the painful European political disruptions of the Revolution of 1848, and she, as lady poets seem so prodigally inclined to do, died young, in her mid-fifties in 1861, of her mysterious lifelong illness. Widower Robert Browning went back to England after that, trying, unsuccessfully to make a proper Englishman out of their "Italian" son, who expatriated himself back to Italy as soon as his father died.
The story is a fascinating one, which this book handles admirably, for all that I am ill qualified to comment much upon either the Brownings or their poetry, he famous mainly for his DRAMATIS PERSONAE and she for her SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGESE and her AURORA LEIGH, a Victorian romance written entirely in iambic pentameter, making it the longest poem in the English language. It was in fact AURORA LEIGH which drew me into a curiosity about the Brownings, merely in the course of doing some research on Emily Dickinson, who owned that book as one of her particular favorites. It was a sidetrack, but an interesting and rewarding one, and I can highly recommend the book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Dares and Does draw you in
Review: A wonderful biography of a marriage between two genius poets, Dared and Done drew me in with such force and speed that I was almost glad of being ill myself so as to have an excuse to stay in bed and finish it. Markus has managed to convey her own excitement at relating such an intriguing story and did what a good author should do - made me want to delve into these poets' lives and their poetry even more.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Romantic Story
Review: The romantic story of 2 poets who fell in love at mid-life, married, escaped to Italy, and lived happily for 15 years until Elizabeth's death. The author discusses the lives of the poets amongst their friends, acquaintances, other writers, & artists in Italy where living was less expensive and the climate more favorable. There are many cute stories about their son Pen and how the couple disagreed over various aspects of his unbringing. Also touched upon are the previous generations of both the Barretts and the Brownings and their history in Jamaica. Besides learning about the the Brownings, this book gives you a good feel of what life was like in the middle 19th century. Lots of B&W illustrations throughout the book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A very nice bio into the life and poetry of immortal lovers
Review: The Brownings hold a special place in my world, especially EBB. "Sonnets From The Portuguese" speaks with the eloquence, dignity and passion of the human ideal behind the flaws and veils of life and lovers (both RB and EBB's poetry are available on disc). Especially the last ten sonnets. EBB wrote not only about love and lovers, but about the human condition. She lived an insulated life yet was by nature a worldly and sophisticated soul. RB struggled with his inability to support his family, living off of EBB's inheritance annuity. Through this biography I was better able to appreciate his humaness and struggle, though I am still inclined toward EBB and her poetry. They were the sum of many contradictions, the big one being that they were so English (formal and proper) yet Bohemian in their liberal thinking. Both lovers and artists in the same household, in the same relationship, in the same struggle to survive and create (they do remind me of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's struggle and life together). While the book probably told the whole story, at least as much as a biographer can research and reveal, I still felt something lacking. I wanted the story to go on a little longer, a little deeper. I knew quite a bit about EBB before I began the book, I learned much more about her heritage and conflicts by reading this biography. My appreciation is much greater. It's a shame that we Moderns let so much of our heritage lay dormat (literaturewise) in the vaults of the "old days". To sip and savour the lives and poetry of the past is something we should cherish and celebrate. This book points in that direction. I strongly recommend this to all lovers of RB & EBB and poetry.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Dared...and well done
Review: I picked up this book out of a desire to learn more about the lives and love of the Brownings. I had merely intended to skan through the pages, expecting yet another boring biography, but I was surprised.
Review Summary: Stranger Truths Than Poetry
Review: Those who recall the Barretts of Wimpole Street may remember a pairing of upper echelon Victorian poets, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, who lived a life together as strange as anything in their poetry. So strange, in fact, as to have rather fallen out of history, as their fashion faded, as if too big or awkward for the flow of it. Today the fame of the Brownings, in life and in verse, is no longer common currency in the popular fancy or other than among specialists, but in their day they were the talk of the town, in London and Florence, at least, and deservedly so.
In brief, their story ran like this: She was the London home-bound invalid daughter of a father who, from a Jamaican slave-owning planter family, eccentrically refused to let any of his many offspring marry and bear children, on threat of disinheritance, apparently, it is suggested, because of a suspicion of dark slave-blood in his family tree and a fear of perpetuating it. Her sequestered illness, whatever it may have been, never adequately diagnosed, apparently, left her with nothing worthwhile in her fallow young life but an urge to express her spirit through a marvellous poetic gift, which, magnified by the mystery swirling around her personal life, made her famous enough to attract the infatuated attention of another poet, Robert Browning, who thus fell in love with her at second hand, sought out and courted her in secrecy, won her heart and eloped with her to Italy, where they lived out their marriage safe from her wealthy and powerful father's wrath. In Italy both their love and their poetry flourished, bringing fame, the fellowship of the Euro-American cultural cogniscenti of the age and, eventually, a living, to the pair of them, and in due time a beautiful healthy son to dote upon. Theirs was, in short, a love story for the ages, with perils, pathos and passion enough and to spare. In other words, even in Victorian times, you couldn't have scripted such stuff as this, at least not credibly.
Not that life was all lollipops and roses for the Brownings, of course. They lived through all the painful European political disruptions of the Revolution of 1848, and she, as lady poets seem so prodigally inclined to do, died young, in her mid-fifties in 1861, of her mysterious lifelong illness. Widower Robert Browning went back to England after that, trying, unsuccessfully to make a proper Englishman out of their "Italian" son, who expatriated himself back to Italy as soon as his father died.
The story is a fascinating one, which this book handles admirably, for all that I am ill qualified to comment much upon either the Brownings or their poetry, he famous mainly for his DRAMATIS PERSONAE and she for her SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGESE and her AURORA LEIGH, a Victorian romance written entirely in iambic pentameter, making it the longest poem in the English language. It was in fact AURORA LEIGH which drew me into a curiosity about the Brownings, merely in the course of doing some research on Emily Dickinson, who owned that book as one of her particular favorites. It was a sidetrack, but an interesting and rewarding one, and I can highly recommend the book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Dares and Does draw you in
Review: A wonderful biography of a marriage between two genius poets, Dared and Done drew me in with such force and speed that I was almost glad of being ill myself so as to have an excuse to stay in bed and finish it. Markus has managed to convey her own excitement at relating such an intriguing story and did what a good author should do - made me want to delve into these poets' lives and their poetry even more.
Some of the speculation I did not agree with such as EBB's father not wanting his children to marry because of possible African blood. The birth of Pen Browning should have eradicated that concern. We may never understand the strange, cruel elder Barrett and fortunately, Dared and Done doesn't hinge on the theory. I did want to know more about the conniving Sophia Eckley - her cause of death for example, since she played such a huge role in the Browning marriage. I was also curious about EBB's illness - oddly, we never do get a diagnosis - only her maintenance cure of morphine and ether.
Remarkably, EBB had the greater reputation as a poet during the Barrett-Browning marriage with Robert Browning for many years being considered the lesser poet. That can make for trouble in the most loving of marriages and re-witnessing the devotion these two gifted poets demonstrated repeatedly is both exceptional and inspiring.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Romantic Story
Review: The romantic story of 2 poets who fell in love at mid-life, married, escaped to Italy, and lived happily for 15 years until Elizabeth's death. The author discusses the lives of the poets amongst their friends, acquaintances, other writers, & artists in Italy where living was less expensive and the climate more favorable. There are many cute stories about their son Pen and how the couple disagreed over various aspects of his unbringing. Also touched upon are the previous generations of both the Barretts and the Brownings and their history in Jamaica. Besides learning about the the Brownings, this book gives you a good feel of what life was like in the middle 19th century. Lots of B&W illustrations throughout the book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A very nice bio into the life and poetry of immortal lovers
Review: The Brownings hold a special place in my world, especially EBB. "Sonnets From The Portuguese" speaks with the eloquence, dignity and passion of the human ideal behind the flaws and veils of life and lovers (both RB and EBB's poetry are available on disc). Especially the last ten sonnets. EBB wrote not only about love and lovers, but about the human condition. She lived an insulated life yet was by nature a worldly and sophisticated soul. RB struggled with his inability to support his family, living off of EBB's inheritance annuity. Through this biography I was better able to appreciate his humaness and struggle, though I am still inclined toward EBB and her poetry. They were the sum of many contradictions, the big one being that they were so English (formal and proper) yet Bohemian in their liberal thinking. Both lovers and artists in the same household, in the same relationship, in the same struggle to survive and create (they do remind me of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's struggle and life together). While the book probably told the whole story, at least as much as a biographer can research and reveal, I still felt something lacking. I wanted the story to go on a little longer, a little deeper. I knew quite a bit about EBB before I began the book, I learned much more about her heritage and conflicts by reading this biography. My appreciation is much greater. It's a shame that we Moderns let so much of our heritage lay dormat (literaturewise) in the vaults of the "old days". To sip and savour the lives and poetry of the past is something we should cherish and celebrate. This book points in that direction. I strongly recommend this to all lovers of RB & EBB and poetry.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Dared...and well done
Review: I picked up this book out of a desire to learn more about the lives and love of the Brownings. I had merely intended to skan through the pages, expecting yet another boring biography, but I was surprised.
Ms. Markus had done a wonderful job in making the characters come to life for me, and she had achieved this without adding a trace of fiction. Her extensive research blended in so well with her writing that I had no trouble following along. In fact, I found it so interesting that I ended up reading the entire book, from beginning to end.
I can only hope that the romance of Robert and Elizabeth will forever live through this brilliant biography!