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 I love you not only for what you are,
but for what I am when I am with you. 
I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, 
but for what you are making of me. 
I love you for the part of me that you bring out. 
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning~

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Ba" is a great poet who lived during the Romantic Movement in England. Her best known poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese published in 1850, were actually personal love letters written to Robert Browning during their courtship. Letters written from her heart to her "beloved" in a sincere and open way, communicating her feelings about life and love. Elizabeth never intended for anyone else to ever read them. Reading through the sonnets you see the growth of her love for Robert as it happened...."from hesitation and doubt to happy affirmation." She asks not to be loved for her feminine attributes....but simply for the "sake of love." 

Elizabeth Barrett was born at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England on March 6, 1806, to Edward and Mary Moulton-Barrett. She was one of twelve children. Elizabeth was the oldest daughter. Her family was very wealthy from the sugar plantations they owned in Jamaica. Her ancestors had not lived in England for some 200 years. However, Elizabeth's father wanted to raise his family in England, and so he left the plantations in the hands of overseers to be run by slaves. During Elizabeth's childhood the family lived in a beautiful place called Hope End, a 500-acre estate near the Malvern Hills in England. Elizabeth played along with her brothers and sister. She rode horses and visited the neighboring families. She also spent much time reading and writing poetry. She was very intelligent and very determined to become a poet. By the age of nine she had written her first ode. By the age of thirteen her first poem was published. At the age of 15 she contracted a virus infection, then measles. This is when opium was first prescribed for her. She took it the rest of her life. It is rumored that she received a spinal injury when she fell from a horse during her teens. Whatever the case, Elizabeth suffered from ill health the remainder of her life.

Much of what Elizabeth learned was self taught. She was always fascinated with the classics. Later in life, she had a blind friend, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who rekindled her love of Greek literature. She knew Latin and Greek better than her brothers and could read French, Portuguese, and Italian. Elizabeth had a "passionate enthusiasm for her Christian faith." She was involved in Bible and Missionary Societies at her church. She learned Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament in its original language. She read it from beginning to end. She spoke of her religious obsession as "not the deep persuasion of the mild Christian but the wild visions of an enthusiast."

The Seraphim and Other Poems was published in 1838. This was the first of her poetry as an adult which appeared under her name. Other works had been published anonymously. After The Seraphim and Other Poems was published Elizabeth was not only physically weak, but distressed that her siblings were being sent to Jamaica to help with the family's estates. Elizabeth was opposed to slave labor and she was saddened that her siblings were sent away, so she visited Torquay, a village by the sea on the Devonshire coast. Her brother, Edward, nicknamed "Bro" and her sister, Henrietta, accompanied her. Elizabeth was hoping to regain her strength in the milder climate. During this time, her brother, Sam died of fever in Jamaica and her brother Edward, drowned in a tragic boating accident in Torquay. Elizabeth was devastated by the loss of her two brothers, too grief stricken to even write for about a year. Eventually, she returned to reside with her family now in London. Her family, due to financial loss had sold much of the plantations in Jamaica, and had been forced to move to a smaller home. Still a very upscale residence at 50 Wimpole Street in London where they were able to live very comfortably. 

On Wimpole Street Elizabeth spent her days and nights secluded in her room. She wrote poems and letters for five years. Her poems were published in 1944 titled Poems. In Poems, Elizabeth recognized some of the authors she most admired, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Robert Browning. Elizabeth became very popular in the country after this book of poems was published. Robert Browning, a poet, admired Poems and wrote Elizabeth to thank her for her tribute to him. This began their courtship. Over a twenty month period they exchanged 574 letters. Robert asked to visit Elizabeth. Elizabeth finally agreed. She had admired Robert Browning's book, Paracelsus for some time, but was too shy to tell him. In May of 1945 Robert and Elizabeth met in her home. Robert Browning was 6 years younger than Elizabeth. He was healthy and very active in society. Elizabeth struggled with his feelings for her, finding it difficult to believe he could love her, a semi-invalid. She reveals her anxieties in her letters to him later published as Sonnets to the Portuguese. Robert and Elizabeth were secretly married September 12, 1946. Elizabeth and Robert kept their marriage a secret until they left England a week after they were married. Elizabeth's father disapproved of any of his children marrying and never communicated with Elizabeth after her marriage. 

After leaving England, Elizabeth and Robert went to Italy, where they lived in the villa of Casa Guidi, overlooking Florence, Italy. Elizabeth's health improved in the warmer climate. She loved Italy and began writing poems about life around her and social problems she saw there. At the age of 43, she delivered a healthy son, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning. Elizabeth thought of him as her "miracle" baby, because she had two miscarriages prior to delivering him. He was normal despite the fact that Elizabeth had taken opium for so many years. The name Wiedeman was chosen to honor Robert's mother who died a week after her grandson was born, never having known about him. Elizabeth hoped choosing Weideman for their son's name would cheer Robert up about the death of his mother. She also presented Robert with the Sonnets to the Portuguese at this time. The name Weideman was more than Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning could comfortably say and so he called himself "Pen" which stuck. 

Although Elizabeth is famous for her love poems, and her poems may often seem sentimental, Elizabeth wrote about both social and political issues also. She addressed such issues as the "slave trade in America, the oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, the labor of children in the mines and the mills of England, and the restrictions placed upon women." In other writings, Elizabeth criticized her native homeland for not aiding other countries in some of these sensitive social areas. The Cry of the Children, Isobel's Child, Bertha in the Lane, are three of her most remembered writings....all of which social injustices are addressed. Casa Guidi Windows is said to contain Elizabeth's "ripest growth and greatest intellectual strength." She wrote the poem looking from her window at Casa Guidi, watching the Italians struggle for freedom. She sympathized with them and simply wrote from her heart. And of course, the Sonnets from the Portuguese are still popular as great love poems. "My little Portuguese" was actually Robert's secret name for Elizabeth, because of her dark complexion due to here Creole heritage. Also popular today is the epic poem Aurora Leigh published in 1857. Aurora Leigh was described by Elizabeth as a "novel-poem." The heroine of Aurora Leigh has a "passionate interest in social questions," deals with "conflict as artist and woman," and also strives for "knowledge and freedom." 

Elizabeth's health deteriorated after her father died in 1857. As Elizabeth grew weaker, Robert finally called in a physician. He diagnosed "an abscess on the lung as the cause of her respiratory distress" and increased her opium. Some speculate that this increase in opium possibly caused her condition to worsen. Elizabeth died in her husband's arms at the Casa Guidi on June 29, 1861 at the age of 55. She is buried in Florence, Italy at the old Protestant Cemetery. Elizabeth's Last Poems was published in 1862. 

In her lifetime, Elizabeth Barrett Browning influenced many other great literary people, among them Emily Dickinson. Although Elizabeth was in poor health most of her life, she never let anything stop her from writing. According to E. C. Stedman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was not only "the greatest female poet that England has produced, but more than this, the most inspired woman so far as known, of all who have composed in ancient or modern tongues or flourished in any land or clime." Her dear friend, Miss Mitford, describes Elizabeth as "a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam." 

If thou must love me, 
let it be for naught except for love's sake only. 
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning~

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Quotes

Sonnet 14: "If thou must love me, let it be for naught"

Sonnet 43: "How do I love thee?"

  Collection of Love Quotes

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