Almanac of Story Tellers: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of March 6th

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    It is the 65th day of the year, leaving 300 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1806, the Victorian-era poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browing, was born.

    In her lifetime, she was regarded as one of England's most original and gifted poets, and published in much of the English speaking world.

    She told poetic stories about religion, romance, social injustice, and her opposition to child labor (The Cry of the Children), and slavery (Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point.) 

     Barrett Browning is regarded as the greatest female poet of her era, and by many as the greatest poet regardless of gender.  She inspired poets such as Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe. She was popular and well read among her contemporaries, and was considered for the position of poet laurette of the United Kingdom, an unpresidented honor for a woman of her time. 

    She was often in frail health, but her family's wealth allowed her to live and spend a large part of her life reading and studying the classics. She later married the poet Robert Browning, after a courtship that began when he wrote her a letter priasing her work. During the lifetimes, her work often outshadowed his.

    Among the letters Barrett Browning wrote during their courtship became one of her most famous and beloved works:

                How do I love there? 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 every day's

                Most quite 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 the passion put to use

                In my old griefs, and with my childhood 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.