Aurora Leigh

Aurora Leigh (1856) is an epic poem by English Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Described by Browning as "a novel in verse," Aurora Leigh is primarily the story of its titular heroine, an intelligent woman and ambitious poet whose talent is matched only by her skill for self-doubt. Although it is narrated in the first person, the poem also concerns itself with the character Marian Erle, a woman rescued from a life on the streets by Aurora's cousin Romney, who loves both women in complex and varying ways. Recognized as one of the most important poems of the nineteenth century, Aurora Leigh is notable for its use of the epic form-traditionally masculine, and concerned with subjects such as war, history, and the gods-in order to tell a story centered on talented and uniquely independent women.Born in Florence to a Tuscan mother and English father, and encouraged from a young age to study the classics and learn Latin and Greek, Aurora Leigh develops not