"I Stood Woman And Artist"

"I stood woman and artist,- either incomplete, both credulous of completion" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning 270). Is this possible that a woman can be an artist? Is it possible that a woman can have aspirations and cannot only aspire to be a poet, a lawyer, a construction worker, or anything else she wants to be and create and succeed in that vocation? The "integration of woman and poet" (Cooper 145) seems almost impossible in the Victorian era. Women do not have to be artists but should have the right to be. Women should be respected for their vocation no matter whether it be a stay-at-home mother or a Victorian poet. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote Aurora Leigh, believed that women should be set on equal ground with the rest of humanity. E.B. Browning was and still is a well-known poet of the Victorian era. She wrote many works on political economy, religion, and especially women's rights. In the nineteenth century, women were not considered as having the same rights as men. The definition of man was different than the definition of woman. Woman was expected to be the "helpmate" as Elizabeth Barrett Browning would put it, and men were to be in charge of the household and make money by working. Different gender roles within Aurora Leigh paint a completely different and more modern view of women. Woman is a very complex being created in the likeness of God that has the ability to love, be loved, suffer, dream, aspire, create, be intellectual, be strong, be motherly, know the truth, reach goals, be thankful, grow, live and eventually die. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem Aurora Leigh effectively addresses what it meant to be a woman in the nineteenth century and sets a great example for the women of today to follow.

Aurora Leigh was written in 1856. According to Angela Leighton, this novel was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in some of the "happiest years of her life- years in which she became a wife, mother, cosmopolitan traveler and tireless observer of revolutionary events in Europe after 1848" (115). Elizabeth Browning was a woman who was discriminated against and had a bad reputation just because she was a woman poet. "By taking up a makeshift pen and trying to write for herself the girl threatens to deprive her observer of a desirable, inspiring image in the mirror" (Leighton 115). Rousseau believed in the idea that women shouldn't deprive men of beauty by trying too hard to become writers. In the nineteenth century, women were thought to have different roles than men, and many people today still make that misconception. However, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was content with being a poet no matter what labels or discrimination came upon her. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was actually, after Wordsworth's death, in the running to become Poet Laureate (Stone 1). She did not, however, win this title. Could this be because she was a woman? Even though "...Aurora Leigh tend[ed] to be dismissed as a hectic aberration..." (Leighton 4) in the nineteenth century, that didn't cause a great distress for Barrett Browning. Writing poetry was what she had aspired to do with her life, and she accomplished that goal. She not only was a poet but a mother and a wife. Not being in the "sphere" so to speak of the ideal nineteenth century woman, E.B. Browning sets an example not of conformity but of ambition and independence.

Aurora Leigh was not well-accepted until recently. Many critics felt that Aurora Leigh was "a powerful but essentially imperfect work" (Thum 223). Maureen Thum felt that Elizabeth Barrett Browning's novel was in a way restrained by the bias of the author. Thum says the "...author is so immersed in traditionalist views of women and in personal conflicts about her own femininity that she is unable to think her way out of patriarchy" (Thum 224). Barrett Browning clearly does not have a traditionalistic view on women but wants to have a new view of women that allows for their rights. Aurora's femininity was not in question just because she wanted to be a poet instead of a helpmate to Romney. Many criticisms have been made about Barrett Browning's work. Anne Wallace says, "In its first two books, Barrett Browning's poem sets up a deliberate opposition between the female/domestic labor of sewing and the masculine/artistic "labors" of walking and writing" (Walace 240). The division of "work" as women's or men's is apparent, but the novel does not state that women should only do the sewing and men should be poets. Aurora Leigh reverses the traditional gender roles in which Aurora becomes the poetess. "Only with the growth of feminist publishing and criticism in the late 1970s has this tide been turned, and her poetry come to be read again..." (Leighton 4). This novel is very helpful to the women of today in order to look at how far women's rights have come. Many feminists look at Barrett Browning's work as a guide to being a woman artist. Feminists had not seen Barrett Browning's unpublished work. Elizabeth calls on her "sisters" "to give her both 'ear' and heart' and with their own voices to 'confirm' hers" (Stone 2). It is important today that women still stand and confirm the voice of Elizabeth Barrett Browning because she breaks out of the mold of the woman of the past who had very few rights or opportunities in the world and starts a new type of writing and a new defining moment for women. Women today are not looked down upon if they decide to have a job that brings income to their family. Women have gained much since the nineteenth century, but we have still not completely been given equal rights with men. Women have the freedom to express themselves whether it be in music or writing poetry or any other form of expression. It is imperative to look at Elizabeth Barrett Browning's work in order to gain a better understanding of what it truly means to be a woman both then and now.

Aurora Leigh centers on Aurora "the heroine of the work...a poet herself, who writes the story of her life and literary success as one example of the general cause of women's emancipation and independence" (Leighton 115). In book one of Aurora Leigh, Aurora begins by saying


And I who have written much in prose and verse For others' uses, will write now for mine, -will write my story for my better self As when you paint your portrait for a friend, Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it Long after he has ceased to love you, just To hold together what he was and is (Browning 254).


She writes to better herself as a woman. Barrett Browning, of course, is not writing about what it means to be a woman, but Sarah Anne Brown feels that Aurora Leigh "...will be a poem about writing poetry, rather than about the conventional matter of epic" (Brown 2). It is the right and priveledge of a woman to express herself whether in poetry, music, art, or her handywork. We have a need as women to show our emotions and to express how we are feeling in some way, Elizabeth Browning's being Aurora Leigh and other great poetry she has written. "My heart beat in my brain" (Browning 267). Aurora lived because of her knowledge and intellect. Her very being was based upon the knowledge she gained from reading books, something she greatly loved to do. Women have the ability to be intellectual, knowledgeable, and educated. Though in the nineteenth century it might have been almost impossible for a woman to receive an education, it was not impossible for Elizabeth Browning or the character of Aurora.
"Aurora Leigh suggests that as long as poetry is imagined as a predominately male endeavor, a female poet enacts her liberation by transforming herself from being the object of male narrative to being the subject of her own story" (Cooper 145). Women can be liberated by making a stand even though they may have to endure great suffering to reach the mark.

Through this great suffering and discrimination Aurora and Elizabeth Browning found themselves. Part of growing into being a woman involves great suffering.
Suffering is a trait of humanity that is necessary to be content and wise. Aurora's father died and her mother before her father. She said, "there, ended childhood" (EBB 257). Going through all this hardship caused Aurora to mature and become a woman. She was no longer a child because she basically had herself to depend on. Aurora says to herself, "We'll live, Aurora! we'll be strong. The dogs are on us but we will not die" (EBB 269). Aurora is a strong woman when adversity arises. Even though everyone, including the man that loved her, put her down, it only made her an even stronger woman. Women today should take heart from this and be encouraged. Women should not let people or situations bring them down but should be sustained and be made strengthened through these hardships that are faced.

Aurora said, speaking of her deceased mother, "Women know the way to rear up children (to be just), they know a simple, merry, tender knack of tying sashes...children learn by such... [they] become aware and unafraid of love" (EBB 255). Her mother helped her to become who she was even though her mother seemed to be somewhat the stereotypical woman- a mother and home-maker. Aurora's love of poetry and ability to love and be loved is probably her most important trait as a woman. Women were made to nurture and love others just as Aurora's mother raised her to be unafraid of love. Whether we are loved in return does not make all the difference, but the ability to give love to someone else sustains us and gives us joy. Aurora's father's last words to her were "Love, my child, love, love!" (EBB 257). He didn't specify to his daughter what she was supposed to love, but she knew what she was meant to love. She was meant to love and have sympathy for people and was meant to love writing and poetry. It seems fitting that her father's last words to her be about love and her mother's actions help Aurora see that she doesn't have to fear love. Love is the most precious gift God gives, and all of humanity has the ability to love and be loved. "Whoever lives true life will love true love" (EBB 269). Without love there would be no humanity.

The love Romney, Aurora's cousin, had for her might not have at all been true love. Romney continuously puts Aurora down and says she shouldn't be a poet. When Romney finds her book of poetry he calls it witchcraft and calls her a witch. Women should not let men talk to them in that way, and Aurora Leigh sure didn't. Romney states, "Ah, but men, and still less women, happily scarce need be poets" (EBB 271). Aurora had every right to be a poet. And she did not succumb to the false love of Romney but became a poet as she dreamed to be. She said "I choose to walk at all risks,-Here, if heads that hold a rhythmic thought, must ache perforce, for my part I choose headaches.." (EBB 272). Romney has the stereotypical notion that women should have heartaches and not headaches. Aurora is a brave woman who will risk everything to create what she aspires. Women must sometimes take risks in order to achieve goals. Being brave is a trait that all women should have, but not a lot are willing to take the risk. Romney has such a stereotypical sense of women that is somewhat sickening. He says,


Women as you are, mere women, personal and passionate, you give us doting mothers, and perfect wives, sublime Madonnas, and enduring saints. We get no Christ from you,-and verily we shall not get a poet, in my mind (EBB 273).


Women are personal, passionate, mothers, wives, and are beautiful creatures. Some are even saints; But Christ, however, made us as well as man in his own likeness. Both men and women can have their own vocation. If a woman wants to be a poet, she can. Aurora says she will not marry Romney when he offers, because he wants her to be his helpmate in his socialist job. She tells him, "I too have my vocation..." (EBB 276). First of all she doesn't love Romney, and second she is not going to give up her dream to make his a reality. In the Victorian period many women felt that marriage was their primary means of gaining support. Many women had to go into prostitution to support themselves (Dalley 3). But marriage should not be something women feel that they have to follow through with in order to be supported. Today's woman, if she chooses, can support herself by having her own vocation that she enjoys and can make a living at. Women, take heart. Men cannot make women be whatever they want them to be. Women are strong, independent and can make up their own minds. Aurora feels like Romney misunderstands her. She says,


You misconceive the question like a man, who sees the woman as the complement of his sex merely. You forget too much that every creature, female as the male, stands single in responsible act and thought as also in birth and death (EBB 276).


Women truly are made by God as a complement of men. God made Eve in order that she be a helpmate to Adam. God did not make women, however, to be taken advantage of and discriminated against by the rest of humanity. Women are made in God's likeness just as well as men. As Cooper states, "Aurora insists on claiming for herself the Adamic privilege of naming the world" (146). Aurora does not want to let Romney be in control of her life but wants to have her own vocation and goals no matter what the risks might be.

Romney seems extremely misguided in his ideals about women but he does, however say a few things that are true and helpful. He first says, " I sympathize with man not God ( I think I was a man for chiefly this)..." (EBB 274). It is our human nature, either as a man or a woman, to sympathize with others. Having empathy for someone betters us. The only other tactful thing Romney says in book one or two of Aurora Leigh is that


Life means, be sure, both heart and head,- both active, both complete, and
both in earnest. Men and women make the world, as head and heart make
human life. Work man, work woman, since there's work to do... for head
and heart and thought can never do the work of love. (EBB 272)


We are human by living life with active heads and hearts. It is our duty to work. It's part of being human. God is love, therefore, humans cannot do the work of God but still are called to do His work. Aurora puts it another way. She says, "And so, through forced work and spontaneous work, the inner life informed the outer life..." (EBB 269). We live by working. Whether the work is forced or whether we choose to do it on our own, it still must be done. Part of being a woman or a human is doing things we don't want to do or are afraid to do. But we must be brave and carry out our work at all risks.

Women must work to better themselves. Part of bettering one's self involves great suffering. Through suffering comes knowledge, wisdom, and thanksgiving. Also through suffering comes love and power. Aurora went through a great deal of discrimination and inequality, but she overcame all the gender stereotypes that were so heavily weighing her down. She became a successful poet through working diligently, loving people, but most importantly by loving herself. Woman must first love herself in order to love, aspire, create, and grow. Woman is just as important as man in humanity, and women should strive to be whatever they want to be no matter what stereotype society places on them. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh can be seen as a guide and a model to all women who desire to follow their dreams and achieve their goals.

Women suffer, learn, love, grow, and eventually die. Aurora, speaking of her father's death, says "life, struck sharp on death..." (EBB 257). Part of being human and living life is dying, but if we are lucky maybe something we've done will carry on to help someone in the future. "Oft the ancient forms will thrill indeed in carrying the young blood" (EBB 268). Elizabeth Barrett Browning would be thrilled to know that the women of today have followed in her ambitious footsteps towards the freedom of womanhood. The great women of old have made us what we are today. "Only by recognizing women poets' struggle to form the synthesis of woman and poet, to make woman and artist both complete, as a crucial and integral part of humanistic literary history, can we move beyond it" (Cooper 192).















Works Cited
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Leighton, Angela. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Bloomington: Indiana, 1986.
Preston, Harriet Waters. Mrs. Browning's Complete Poetical Works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1900.
Stone, Marjorie and Beverly Taylor. “Confirm My Voice: My Sisters, Poetic Audiences, and the Published Voices of EBB.” Victorian Poetry 44.4 (2006): 1-10.
Thum, Maureen. "Challenging Traditionalist Gender Roles: The Exotic Woman as Critical Observer in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh." The Foreign Women In British Literature: Exotics, Aliens, and Outsiders. (1999): 223-239.
(Located in Bloom's Modern Critical Views).
Wallace, Anne D.. " 'Nor In Fading Silks Compose': Sewing, Walking, and Poetic Labor
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