E570102A. Aurora Leigh.
Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser, 2 January 1857, pp. 2–3.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 23.
The “book of the day,” is in other words the book that is most talked of over “æsthetic tea,” is Mrs. Barrett Browning’s new poem “Aurora Leigh.” An occasional prude has sufficient cause for turning up her nose at it; for the authoress does not mince matters, and call the sins of our age by circumlocutionary names. But for compass of thought and harrowing force of passion it is unequalled among books written by women. No living poet could have written it; at least no living poet has succeeded so well in giving a voice to the inarticulate misery of our chaotic “transition era,” as it is called by the poetess, and by Carlyle, and Goethe, and Fichte before her. She has assimilated many of the ideas of the great writers of this century, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle, especially the latter, and turned them to her own purposes with a skill and perfect mastery which gives her a right to borrow. She imparts to all the tinge of her own originality, and in the tempest of opinions her woman’s will is not a reed shaken by the wind. The theme of the poem is the autobiography of the poetess, and it is no fancy history; but stamped with the die of a hard experience. The passion of it reminds one of Charlotte Brönte’s novels, and the story of Alton Locke; but its philosophy is deeper than can be hoped for from the brilliant and philanthropic rector of Eversley.
Reviewed:
Aurora Leigh (EBB), London: Chapman & Hall, 1857.
___________________
