Aurora Leigh

<p>First published in 1856 <em>Aurora Leigh</em> blends epic scope with intimate psychological portraiture. Written in blank verse the poem follows Aurora from childhood through her determination to become a poet resisting conventional expectations of marriage and domestic limitation. Her intellectual formation artistic struggle and emotional entanglements unfold against the social tensions of Victorian England.</p><p>At once a Künstlerroman and a social critique the work addresses class division women's education industrial poverty and the vocation of the artist. Browning's heroine asserts the legitimacy of female creative ambition making the poem a landmark in nineteenth-century literature and early feminist thought. Expansive in structure yet personal in voice <em>Aurora Leigh</em> remains one of the most significant long poems of the Victorian era.</p>