SD2092. Anna Brownell Jameson to Ottilie von Goethe

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 264 (in part).

Florence

July 13, [1857].

… With regard to Aurora Leigh, I think there is much general truth in your criticism, but I am disappointed that you see only the faults and do not seem to feel that the beauty, power and vigour and originality of the poem would redeem far greater faults than merely those of style. It has seized upon the hearts and souls of people, for now the 3d edition is nearly sold. My belief is that if Mrs. Browning had kept her poem for a year before it was printed, she would have given it a more correct and polished form. I have not shewn her your criticism, but she knows what I think, which is very much what you do, except that I feel more the wonderful beauty and power, which is far greater than anything in Byron, tho’ less felicitous in expression. …

Publication: Letters of Anna Jameson to Ottilie von Goethe, ed. G.H. Needler (London, 1939), pp. 216–217.

Manuscript: Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv.

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