Customer Reviews

Aurora Leigh (Oxford World's Classics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having been brought up on the notion that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the slighter and less-talented adjunct poet of her husband Robert, I was pleased to find I was wrong.

She's terrific.

This is a brilliant work, full of dazzling poetry and insights.

It's loaded with allusions and references (I read the Penguin edition; and the notes there run for many, many pages--and these barely skim the surface), but it is remarkably accessible and fun.

This is a work full of wisdom and unusual perspectives. Luminous and grand and down-to-earth all at once. Imagine Jane Eyre written by Shakespeare.

It's an education in Victorian (upper-middle-class) England, and also the Victorian English infatuation with Italy. It's also a biting and incisive feminist portrait, full of rebellion and self-discovery.

I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes poetry, or Victorian novels.

E.B.B. set out to outstrip Milton and does so in an amazingly original way. Aurora Leigh is a novel in blank verse that is actually longer than Paradise Lost! She combines the genre expectations for a woman writer--the novel--with an audacious bid for poetic immortality. The book tells a good story but it also works as a formidable reminder to her contemporary poets that the novel is taking over and poets must make sure that they are writing in the spirit of the age.

This is the worst copy of a book I have ever seen. There are so many typos it is unreadable! Aurora Leigh is a poem in verse and this copy jumbles all the lines together and has no line numbers either. I had to buy another copy this one was so bad. I DO NOT recommend this book!

I bought this book (General Books edition) from Amazon, and am more than disappointed with it. It is scanned and unedited. It is illegible! Now I will have to buy another copy from a reputable publisher. EBB's poem is wonderful! This edition is simply unreadable!