*Disclaimer: I’m in English teacher geek mode: Meet Aurora Leigh: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Prophetess.
Aurora Leigh
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 1856 verse novel Aurora Leigh, is an eloquent social and religious statement by an author who is so often anthologized only for her sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portuguese. You know them: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”–words that are often used as humor. I teach Aurora Leigh as a part of our epic sequence in 10th grade literature. Juxtaposed with the great social scourge of their age–poverty, religion is presented as deeply personal–an inner force that is informed by Barrett Browning’s Congregationalist upbringing and influenced by her character’s early exposure to Italian Catholicism, but free of the ritual. The poem explores the tension between faith and works, the conflict between a woman’s traditional place and an independent vocation, and the battle between intellect and duty.
Aurora’s Independence
Following her unbelievable refusal of a marriage proposal from Romney, a man she admires, orphan dependant Aurora explains:
“I, too, have my vocation,—work to do
The heavens and earth have set me, since I changed
My father’s face for theirs …
Most serious work, most necessary work …” (Book II)
Aurora Leigh is often taught as a feminist commentary. I believe it should more fittingly be a human commentary, encouraging everyone to pursue the calling of God upon his/her life and not just following the demands and expectations of society. Every gift and calling is important in the Kingdom of God. Consider the scriptures:
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
“The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it (1 Corinthians 12:15-26).
Aurora Leigh As An Epic
Aurora’s story is not small, but epic, in the literal sense. It is a long, narrative poem; it takes place over a long period of time; it describes a culture; it addresses important life questions; and it, indeed, has an epic hero–Aurora, herself. As an epic hero, she is larger-than-life (in a spiritual and progressively social sense), she has an underworld experience, she has supernatural help, and her decisions are influential to her readers. She stands with the ancient writers of epic–Homer, Virgil, and the unknown authors who have used the genre to measure life and to understand humanity’s place in the grand scheme. My favorite part of the poem may be Aurora’s commentary on the place of epic in understanding time:
The critics say that epics have died out
With Agamemnon and the goat-nursed gods—
I’ll not believe it. I could never dream
As Payne Knight did, (the mythic mountaineer
Who travelled higher than he was born to live,
And showed sometimes the goitre in his throat
Discoursing of an image seen through fog,)
That Homer’s heroes measured twelve feet high.
They were but men!—his Helen’s hair turned grey
Like any plain Miss Smith’s, who wears a front;
And Hector’s infant blubbered at a plume
As yours last Friday at a turkey-cock.
All men are possible heroes: every age,
Heroic in proportions, double-faced,
Looks backward and before, expects a morn
And claims an epos.
Ay, but every age
Appears to souls who live in it, (ask Carlyle)
Most unheroic. Ours, for instance, ours!
The thinkers scout it, and the poets abound
Who scorn to touch it with a finger-tip:
A pewter age,—mixed metal, silver-washed;
An age of scum, spooned off the richer past;
An age of patches for old gaberdines;
An age of mere transition, meaning nought,
Except that what succeeds must shame it quite,
If God please. That’s wrong thinking, to my mind,
And wrong thoughts make poor poems.
Every age,
Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned
By those who have not lived past it. We’ll suppose
Mount Athos carved, as Persian Xerxes schemed,
To some colossal statue of a man:
The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear,
Had guessed as little of any human form
Up there, as would a flock of browsing goats.
They’d have, in fact, to travel ten miles off
Or ere the giant image broke on them,
Full human profile, nose and chin distinct,
Mouth, muttering rhythms of silence up the sky,
And fed at evening with the blood of suns;
Grand torso,—hand, that flung perpetually
The largesse of a silver river down
To all the country pastures. ’Tis even thus
With times we live in,—evermore too great
To be apprehended near (Book V).
The Debate
According to the article “‘Faith vs. Works in Aurora Leigh’ in Christian Victorian Literature, “Sometimes we are deceived into thinking the questions of our age are unique to ours alone, and that they mark a progression of human thought over the centuries. However, issues which concern us today, such as social justice and social welfare, preoccupied the Victorians just as much [as evidenced in books by Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and the Brontes] as they sought to ameliorate the detestable working and living conditions of the lower classes. In Christian spheres, both today and in the 1800s, the issue of social justice becomes a theological one, and not a peripheral debate, either; our view on good works reflects our understanding of the gospel and the role of Jesus Christ in our salvation. How much are we responsible for curing social ills? Are we doubting the sovereignty of God by fretting over our works? Could it be blasphemy to do so, as Barrett Browning writes?
“The question especially close to Barrett Browning’s heart in Aurora Leigh is the role of the artist – the contemplator of God, his creation and the people he populated it with. How productive is art, and by extension, faith, in a hungry and starving world? These questions are older than our age or the Victorians’; they go back to the Bible and its discussion of faith vs. works. Every age since the Bible has wrestled with (or settled) this issue differently, some weighing down heavily on one side or the other. For many Victorians confronted with the suffering brought about by the industrial revolution, particularly the Christian socialists and the Unitarians (such as Elizabeth Gaskell), their theology, which perceived Jesus’ primary work on the cross as exemplary, rather than atoning, provided the impetus for their emphasis on charity and education for the poor, i.e. good works.
“Aurora considers the important and debatable relationship between art and the divine, eventually concluding that both she and Romney were “wrong” in their earlier, narrower views (she on art alone, he on social theory alone) because they left too little room for God. The poem ends with a vision of a New Jerusalem, symbolizing a spiritual and poetic renewal for society.”
So as Christians, what do we carry away from Barrett Browning’s prophetess? Perhaps this: According to His own word, God has created us each for and with a purpose. God Himself prescribes: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24).
This is also Aurora’s lesson and example: You, I, all have a vocation–“work to do. Most serious work, most necessary work.”
God bless you!
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In