Title: Dared and done : the marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning /
Authors: Markus, Julia, 1939-
Publisher: Knopf : Distributed by Random House,
Year: 1995
Subjects: Browning, Robert, Marriage.; Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Marriage.; Poets, English Biography; Authors' spouses Great Britain Biography; Married people Great Britain Biography.
Abstract: Examines the social, political, and emotional forces that shaped the lives and art of nineteenth-century poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, whose courtship ranks with the great love stories of all time. Elizabeth, at thirty-nine, was a poet of international fame and unmarried, confined by illness, morphine, and the tyranny of her father. Robert Browning, an admired young poet and playwright and devotee of Elizabeth's, had written to Elizabeth long before they met. "I love your verses with all my heart -- and I love you too." Markus chronicles their extraordinary courtship and marriage, and shows us how the political events of the times inspired the great dramatic monologues of Robert's middle years and how Italy's stormy reunification inspired Elizabeth's later work. To tell their story, Markus for the first time makes use of much of Elizabeth's unpublished correspondence, amid a wealth of other documents.
Contents: Death or love -- Lovers' luck -- Riding an enchanted horse -- "The runaway slave" -- Pisa postscript -- The marriage of true minds: hers -- The marriage of true minds: his -- The roads that led to Rome -- Ecco Roma -- American marble cutters and Yankee Titians -- "Such a wild step" -- "Who's there?" The Ealing Seance -- The almost miraculous year -- Arabel and the "untles" -- Surprise endings -- Admitting impedments -- We poets of the people -- We know each other -- La Vita Nuova -- A word more.