SOURCE: "From Patria to Matria: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Risorgimento," in PMLA, Vol. 99, No. 2, March, 1984, pp. 194-211.

In the following essay, Gilbert claims that Browning's "visions of Italia Riuníta had more to do with both her femaleness and her feminism than is usually supposed, " and served as a vehicle for establishing her own poetic identity.

Then Lady Reason . . . said, "Get up, daughter! Without waiting any longer, let us go to the Field of Letters. There the City of Ladies will be founded on a flat and fertile plain. ... "

Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies 16

Our lives are Swiss—
 So still—so Cool—
 Till some odd afternoon 
 The Alps neglect their Curtains 
 And we look farther on!

Italy stands the other side! 
 While like a guard between—
 The solemn Alps—
 The siren Alps 
 Forever intervene! 
 Emily Dickinson, no. 80

Our insight into this early, pre-Oedipus phase...