Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Guide to the Year's Work) (Victorian Poetry) (Critical Essay) (Column‪)‬

In contrast to last year's work on EBB, in which religion formed a dominant theme, 2006 has brought a return to a strong emphasis on politics--both the politics of nation and gender politics. Works on which attention seems to have converged include the explicitly political Casa Guidi Windows and Poems before Congress, along with Aurora Leigh and "Mother and Poet," one of the most discussed works in Last Poems (1862). Among major new primary resources on EBB, Volume 15 of The Brownings' Correspondence has appeared from Wedgestone Press, as carefully edited and beautifully produced as its precursors in this indispensable comprehensive collection of the Brownings' letters, edited by Philip Kelley with Ronald Hudson (Volumes 1-8), and with Scott Lewis (Volumes 9-14). Other topics discussed this year include EBB's treatment of the city, her representation of melancholy, her collaborative engagement with Robert Browning's works (and his with hers in works such as "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point"), echoes of Shakespeare, and her treatment of social problems. As the bicentenary of EBB's birth, 2006 has also brought conferences such as the Armstrong Browning Library's "This is Living Art" (held March 3-6), and exhibits in libraries and archives, such as the one mounted by the British Library in February and March. Volume 15 of The Brownings' Correspondence is a reminder, should any be needed, of how rich a resource this annotated collection of letters, reviews, and other materials related to the Brownings can be. Although numerous letters in this particular volume (covering the period from January 1848, to August 1849) have appeared in whole or in part in earlier collections, there are also many previously unpublished letters--including letters to correspondents as close to EBB as the Brownings' friend, the writer and art critic Anna Jameson, and RB's sister, Sarianna Browning, as well as letters by both the Brownings to the American writer William Ware, and occasional letters from readers of EBB's poetry.