Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Aurora Leigh': A Reading Guide

Michele Martinez

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Paper, 224 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-7486-3972-4
$27.00

May, 2012
Cloth, 224 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-7486-3971-7
Edinburgh University Press
$95.00

Introduces new readers and students to a celebrated and controversial Victorian novel-poem.

Michelle Martinez guides readers through the poem's major themes and biographical and literary contexts, introducing a range of interpretive frameworks. Long extracts from the poem are accompanied by helpful explanatory commentary. The text's composition history, major influences and modes of poetic expression are also discussed. The teaching and bibliographic chapters offer supplementary materials including print and internet resources.

Key Features

*Ideal guide for readers coming to the text for the first time, or teaching the text at University level

* Fully contextualised and annotated sections of the poem

* Detailed exploration of key themes: poetic vision; love and poetry; epistolary fiction; epic and society; motherhood and sexual transgression; poetry and prophecy

* Innovative teaching suggestions

* Advice and guidance for further reading

Related Subjects

• European and British Literature
• Literary Criticism and Theory

Series

• Reading Guides to Long Poems (Edinburgh University Press)

About the Author

Michele Martinez was born in London, England, and raised in California's San Joaquin Valley. She holds an A.B. from Stanford University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University. She has taught in the English departments of Trinity College (Hartford) and Harvard University and in the History and Literature program at Harvard. She is currently a Preceptor in the Harvard College Writing Program. Her publications and current research interests focus on intersections between nineteenth-century poetry, criticism, and the visual arts.

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