Research Outline
I) Introduction
a) Hook (quote): “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height”
b) Introduce Elizabeth Barrett Browning
c) Explain spinal injury and chronic cough
d) List who Elizabeth influenced and those she influenced
e) Thesis: The death of Elizabeth’s brother, the marriage to her husband, and the birth of her son, has affected Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry and writing style.
II) Paragraph 1
a) Common theme is love because she lived during the Victorian era
b) Motif: female equality because she made very good money and yet it, by law, all went to her husband.
III) Paragraph 2
a) Born on 1806 at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England and was the (quote) “first in her family born in England in over two hundred years.” ("Elizabeth Barrett Browning")
b) Age of ten she was reading many Shakespearean plays and a few passages from Paradise Lost. At age twelve, she had written four books of rhyming couplets which was considered her first “epic” poem.
c) Ailments she suffered from: chronic lung ailment, spinal injury
d) In 1826 she published her first volume.
i) titled An Essay on Mind, with Other Poems and she claimed no authorship of the novel.
e) Death of her mother
f) Friendship with Hugh Stuart Boyd.
i) He had published various volumes of translations from the Greek patristic writings. Her friendship with Hugh sparked her interest for classical Greek literature including: Homer, Pindar, passages from Plato and Aristotle.
ii) The Greek literature influenced her writing style greatly-
(1) she published her translation of Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, the Greek dramatist, in 1833 after the move her father made due to the loss of his rural estate in London.
g) Death ofher brother Edward on July 11, 1840
i) spent five years unable to leave her room
h) 1844 publication of a collection of poems entitled Pomes.
i) The collection gained the attention of Robert Browning, a poet whom Elizabeth had previously praised in a poem in one of her volumes titled “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” In response to the poem, Robert sent a letter of gratitude in 1845 to Elizabeth.
ii) Elizabeth and Robert began to send letters back and forth, much to the displeasure of Elizabeth’s father. She fell in love with Robert and many of her poems reflect this time, her most notable being “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
i) Marriage to Robert on September 12 of 1846 and the two quickly left England and went to Italy.
j) 1849: Birth of Wiedemann Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Pen,"
k) Elizabeth continued writing and in 1850 updated her previous volume Poems at the encouragement of her husband. Due to the Brownings not wanting the poems to seem as if they had any biographical significance, they selected the title “Sonnets from the Portuguese” to make it seem as if the poems were translations. Later in her life, Elizabeth wrote a narrative poem as a way to explain and interpret her feelings on the society of that time
IV) Paragraph 4
a) Victorian era
i) from 1807 to 1901, during the time Queen Victoria was on the throne.
ii) Quote: “Victorian gender ideology justified itself claiming that women were destined to be mothers and wives and no more”
b) During the Victorian era, women were considered property of their father, brother or husband, whichever male happened to provide for the family
i) Did not let it shape her, became her own women
c) Fought for female equality in Britain through her poetry.
i) Her best work on the subject of female equality is Aurora Leigh, a narrative poem about the heroine Aurora Leigh
a) Hook (quote): “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height”
b) Introduce Elizabeth Barrett Browning
c) Explain spinal injury and chronic cough
d) List who Elizabeth influenced and those she influenced
e) Thesis: The death of Elizabeth’s brother, the marriage to her husband, and the birth of her son, has affected Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry and writing style.
II) Paragraph 1
a) Common theme is love because she lived during the Victorian era
b) Motif: female equality because she made very good money and yet it, by law, all went to her husband.
III) Paragraph 2
a) Born on 1806 at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England and was the (quote) “first in her family born in England in over two hundred years.” ("Elizabeth Barrett Browning")
b) Age of ten she was reading many Shakespearean plays and a few passages from Paradise Lost. At age twelve, she had written four books of rhyming couplets which was considered her first “epic” poem.
c) Ailments she suffered from: chronic lung ailment, spinal injury
d) In 1826 she published her first volume.
i) titled An Essay on Mind, with Other Poems and she claimed no authorship of the novel.
e) Death of her mother
f) Friendship with Hugh Stuart Boyd.
i) He had published various volumes of translations from the Greek patristic writings. Her friendship with Hugh sparked her interest for classical Greek literature including: Homer, Pindar, passages from Plato and Aristotle.
ii) The Greek literature influenced her writing style greatly-
(1) she published her translation of Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, the Greek dramatist, in 1833 after the move her father made due to the loss of his rural estate in London.
g) Death ofher brother Edward on July 11, 1840
i) spent five years unable to leave her room
h) 1844 publication of a collection of poems entitled Pomes.
i) The collection gained the attention of Robert Browning, a poet whom Elizabeth had previously praised in a poem in one of her volumes titled “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” In response to the poem, Robert sent a letter of gratitude in 1845 to Elizabeth.
ii) Elizabeth and Robert began to send letters back and forth, much to the displeasure of Elizabeth’s father. She fell in love with Robert and many of her poems reflect this time, her most notable being “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
i) Marriage to Robert on September 12 of 1846 and the two quickly left England and went to Italy.
j) 1849: Birth of Wiedemann Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Pen,"
k) Elizabeth continued writing and in 1850 updated her previous volume Poems at the encouragement of her husband. Due to the Brownings not wanting the poems to seem as if they had any biographical significance, they selected the title “Sonnets from the Portuguese” to make it seem as if the poems were translations. Later in her life, Elizabeth wrote a narrative poem as a way to explain and interpret her feelings on the society of that time
IV) Paragraph 4
a) Victorian era
i) from 1807 to 1901, during the time Queen Victoria was on the throne.
ii) Quote: “Victorian gender ideology justified itself claiming that women were destined to be mothers and wives and no more”
b) During the Victorian era, women were considered property of their father, brother or husband, whichever male happened to provide for the family
i) Did not let it shape her, became her own women
c) Fought for female equality in Britain through her poetry.
i) Her best work on the subject of female equality is Aurora Leigh, a narrative poem about the heroine Aurora Leigh
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