E440700A. A Drama of Exile.
The United States Magazine, and Democratic Review, July 1844, p. 72.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 319.
Elizabeth Barrett
Is for the first time made popularly known, on this side of the Atlantic, by the account given of her in Horne’s late gossipping book, the “New Spirit of the Age.” We are glad to be able to announce that before long the American public will be favored with the opportunity of knowing her still better, through some of her own most exquisite utterances of the divine soul of poetry that glows within her, generated of the sweetest union of womanly tenderness of heart and masculine loftiness and power of intellect. A couple of volumes of her poems (most of them now for the first time given to the world) are at the present moment passing through the press of Moxon, in London, under the title of “A Drama of Life, and other poems;” and will be republished here by Langley on the reception of the remainder of the sheets,—a part of which, containing the principal poem of the collection, we have been favored with permission to peruse; with the further privilege of inserting it, some time in advance of the publication on either side of the ocean, in this Review. One of the most beautiful poems which our day has produced (an excellent judge has declared it the finest that has appeared since “Manfred”), we are glad to grace these pages with it; only regretting that the present Number affords room for but half of it, compelling us to reserve the remainder, which is perhaps the superior half, for our next.
It will not be inappropriate, nor unwelcome to the reader, to complete these introductory remarks by quoting from Mr. Horne the following personal account of this fair poetess and wondrous woman.
[The article concludes with a lengthy quote from Horne’s A New Spirit of the Age.]
[John Louis O’Sullivan]
[The first half of “A Drama of Exile” appeared on pages 74–88 of this issue. The balance was published on pages 142–153 of the August issue.]
Reviewed:
A Drama of Exile, and Other Poems (EBB), New York: Henry G. Langley, 1845.
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