Aurora Leigh Quotes Flashcards
Direct Quotes from the text
She emphasises that power lies with the poet?
Barrett Browning highlights that ‘all men possible heroes’ in ‘every age’ (5. 151) by undercutting the heroism in her rampant use of classical allusions to ‘Homer’s heroes’ (5. 146)
Romney’s view of women poets?
‘If your sex is weak for art […] it is weak for life and duty’
Lady Waldemar’s view of women poets?
‘male poets are preferrable, straining less / and teaching more’ (9. 65 – 66)
What does Romney view women as?
‘strong for life and duty’ (2. 374 - 75)
Aurora insults Romney?
‘You have a wife already whom you love, your social theory.’ (2. 409 – 10)
She is portrayed as an artful female writer?
She is concerned that Lady Waldemar might ‘hold it up against the light’ (5. 1145 – 47) and see through her prose, leading her to rewrite her letter
Her balance between work and love?
‘Art is much, but love is more’ (9. 656)
Her introduction?
‘I who have written much in prose and verse’ (1. 2)
She questions the meaning of poetry?
‘shall I hope to speak my poems in mysterious tune with man and nature?’ (5. 1 – 3)
Description of her aunt?
‘She had lived / A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage’
Identity in beginning of second book?
‘I stood / Woman and artist, either incomplete’
Intertextual reference from Romney?
‘Shoe me a tear / Wet as Cordelia’s’
She experiences doubt due to her gender?
‘Although our woman-hands should shake and fail; / And if we fail … But must we? // Shall I fail?’
How the sexes need each other?
‘The man’s need of the woman, here, / Is greater than the woman’s of the man’
The relationship between women and poetry?
‘a poet’s heart’ is ‘ill-lodged in a woman’s breast’
