SOURCE: Schatz, SueAnn. “Aurora Leigh as Paradigm of Domestic-Professional Fiction.” Philological Quarterly 79, no. 1 (winter 2000): 91-117.

In the following essay, Schatz suggests that Barrett Browning created Aurora Leigh as a role model for Victorian women and a figure of feminine strength, demonstrating that a woman could contribute to both the professional and domestic realms.

I am waiting for a story, and I won't take one, because I want to make one, and I like to make my own stories, because then I can take liberties with them in the treatment.

—Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning; February 27, 1845

If, therefore, I move certain subjects in this work, it is because my conscience was first moved in me not to ignore them.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Julia Martin; February, 1857

1

Through an analysis of Aurora Leigh as domestic-professional fiction, in this essay I investigate Elizabeth Barrett Browning's evolving feminist and artistic philosophy. I...