ABSTRACT
Elizabeth Barrett Browning would have been thrilled that her bicentenary is being celebrated; but she would also have thought it was her due, 'Poetry elevates the mind to Heaven,' she declared optimistically in the preface to her first book, an imitation of Aeschylus privately printed when she was 14. From then on she continued to train herself up to the grandeur of her vocation. The critics liked Aurora Leigh and it sold well, but Barrett Browning was not able to revel in or build on its success. The death of her father upset her terribly, and over the next few years her health worsened. Barrett Browning thought the poetical part of her novel-poem had to do with 'ideals', and Aurora Leigh does include many disquisitions in the old vein of 'poetry elevates the mind to heaven'. Christina Rossetti learned something from Barrett Browning's odd words and hopscotch rhythms.
