Aurora Leigh Chat...

Many people are confused with the rythm of the poem, but I for some reason do not feel caught up in that. The Victorian language is very different, however, than regular language. "English is the greatest language for poetry." I am a French minor, so I understand! French poetry-- not so easy!

I'm glad we're talking about poetry... I am taking another lit class filled with many creative writing majors (of which, I am not...) so I do not know many of the rhythms that other kids seem to know.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
She died young. Her mother died when she was twenty (similar to Aurora Leigh!) Almost was poet laureate! That is a huge deal! She was very politically active, similar to Charles Dickens! Her father cloistered her, and she became almost a recluse.
She became addicted to morphine... opium. In 1846ish, she met Robert Browning through a letter. The two of them quickly fell in love, and then they eloped a year later. When she married him, she became a certain Bohemian figure living in England.
She wrote some of the most famous love poetry ever written. She truly loved Browning. One of her most famous love poems was "How Do I Love Thee?"

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Aurora Leigh
Her aunt does not like her. Aurora's mother took away her aunt's money and inheritance. No one expected her father to marry this woman. He went to Tuscany on business, and found Aurora's mother. Her mother was a Tuscan woman, and she was madly in love with her father, as he was with her. Unfortunately, after their passionate love, she passes away after four years of marriage and having his child.
Aurora's father loves her dearly. He teaches her.
The ideal of feminism is that it will disappear!!!! This will mean sexism will disappear, and that's a good thing! This is why there is even this class-- "British Women Authors." This is the literary cannon at present.
Pallemceste: something that has already been written but someone writes additionally onto it. It brings up the question of bilogony. Maybe it could be God. Think of writing on a piece of paper. What has formed us as people today.
-What covers our pallemceste? What shapes our thoughts and expectations through life. Friends, family, everything we read, music, television, etc.
-Aurora Leigh is asking herself what has shaped her... what around her has shaped who she has become and how she thinks.

Acculturation: traveling outside of her comfort zone, literally. Going to another continent, etc. Listening to eternity.
-This brings about a sense of the infinite or divine. Saints are normally painted in this ecstatic position. Think about babies after being breast-fed-- they are have a peice of the celestial clouds with them, and they are infinately happy and joyous.
-God is the outer infinite.

Aurora's mother loved her with that celestial bliss and infinite peace. Aurora is not reconciled by the order of society.
Aurora feels a "mother want" about the world. Mothers are better at showing their unconditional love than fathers are. This is the case about Aurora's father. She hungers for the unconditional love that only a mother can supply.
Aurora's mother is "worn out by childbirth." Women know how to raise children in ways that are perhaps better than men can. "Mothers can string pretty words together that make no sense." Women have a way of abstract comforting, whereas men are more factual and punctual. Mothers are better readers of their children. Aurora's father is struggling to speak to understand Aurora.

"Rock-a-bye Baby" is about a baby about to die... but when a mother sings it, it is no longer about the meaning. It is simply the sound of her voice "stringing pretty words together that make no sense."

The words we use to describe the world are the words that our culture gives us. There is, somewhat, a range in which we can think. But Barrett Browning does not look at this is such a violent light. She uses the "word" corals, rather than something sharp and masculine like the word, "knives."