Abstract
Elizabeth Barrett kept a journal for one year only, 1831–2, the year she was twenty-five. For that year she kept it faithfully, writing up her long entries daily, with hardly any omissions. It was a year that was full of tensions and uncertainties in her life, all of which surface in the pages of her diary to give us a picture of a lonely and frustrated woman. For Elizabeth Barrett’s journal, with its wholehearted immersion in feeling, bears witness to her intensely passionate nature, its daily entries spilling anger, doubt, resentment and bewilderment onto the empty pages. At a time when other women of her age were managing households and bearing children, Elizabeth Barrett had neither lover, husband nor family responsibility to occupy her attention. Her days were spent in solitary reading, in teaching Greek to her small brothers, and in trying to avoid the desultory engagements which were the bedrock of mid-nineteenth century leisured society. Her journal, recording her empty hours, is packed with obsessive dissection of minute events and her own profoundly felt reactions to the trivia of existence.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
My diary is not meant to be read by any person except myself: but she deserves to be let behind the scenes.
—Elizabeth Barrett. Diary 1831
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Letter to Richard Hengist Home, quoted in Elizabeth Berridge (ed.), The Barretts at Hope End: The Early Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning ( London: John Murray, 1974 ) p. 26.
Margaret Forster, Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography ( London: Chatto & Windus, 1988 ) p. 33.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh ( London: Women’s Press, 1983 ).
Angela Leighton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning ( Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986 ) p. 4.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems, introduced by Margaret Forster (London: Chatto & Windus, 1988 ) p. 22.
For example Angela Leighton, op. cit., Alethea Hayter, Mrs Browning: A Poet’s Work and its Setting ( London: Faber, 1962 ).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1990 Judy Simons
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Simons, J. (1990). Behind the Scenes: The Early Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In: Diaries and Journals of Literary Women from Fanny Burney to Virginia Woolf. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376441_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376441_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-52341-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37644-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)