Life Writing in the Victorian Age: Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VII, Issue IX, September 2020 | ISSN 2321–2705

 Life Writing in the Victorian Age: Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 Bello Usman
Senior Lecturer, Department of General Studies, the Federal Polytechnic, Damaturu

Abstract: Life writing in the Victorian Age took the form of Biography, Autobiography and memoirs which was written in different genres of literature. It also took the form of letters, journals, and diaries. Some of the great Victorian writers wrote about themselves using an indirect method so that they can present an aspect of their lives and that of their contemporaries to their readers. An example of this is Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield. Life writing provides critical information about the Age. Most of the writers engage in this form of literary enterprise because they feel a sense of duty or in order to give themselves satisfaction that a record of their lived lives is available to future generations. Aurora Leigh is a novel in verse form and regarded as an example of Victorian life writing in verse. The heroine, Aurora, in the epic poem exemplifies some selective aspects of the life of Elizabeth Barret Browning and indeed, the situation of women in Victorian England. The ‘Woman Question’ is a core concern of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in this epic. The view and the place of a woman in the Victorian Age became an urgent concern for Browning.

Key words: Aurora, Conservative, Conventions, Epic, Poem.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Victorian Age covers an important era in the history of Great Britain. It covers the reign of Queen Victoria who reigned from 20 June 1837 to the time of her death on 22 January 1901. The Age was seen as a time of peace, progress, refined manners and a period of national self-confidence for Britain. In terms of Empire, it was a time that recorded the highest level of expansion and development to Britain abroad as a world power of reckoning. Technologically, it marked the time when the first railway was opened and this led to a massive improvement in transportation across the country. Although, the period recorded economic advancement, yet, it was a time of economic distress and harassment for many people within Britain. In the face of all this however, the Victorian Age was a time of stability coupled with prosperity and optimism. What is also obvious was that: “History was ubiquitous in Victorian cultural and intellectual life” (Fraser 115). The past in the era was not confined specific places such as the museum, it was everywhere. Literary artists look to history- whether of their lives or of certain events to draw inspiration in their works.

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