Aurora Leigh | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 37 pages of analysis & critique of Aurora Leigh.

Aurora Leigh | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 37 pages of analysis & critique of Aurora Leigh.
This section contains 9,111 words
(approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Stacey Gottlieb

SOURCE: Gottlieb, Stacey. “‘And God will teach her’: Consciousness and Character in Ruth and Aurora Leigh.Victorians Institute Journal 24 (1996): 57-85.

In the following essay, Gottlieb compares Aurora Leigh with Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth, illuminating contrasting notions of feminine identity in the characters of Marian and Ruth.

Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth has been pointed to as a primary source for the Marian Erle subplot of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh1—and it is certainly arguable that Gaskell's sustained attention to her heroine's fall and redemption was the groundbreaking precedent for Barrett Browning's more-than-sympathetic depiction of a “fallen” woman.2 That the increased critical attention paid to these two works over the past twenty years has yielded no extended reading of one against the other is surprising, particularly in view of the narrative overlap between them: both Marian and Ruth are vulnerable, friendless girls who apparently enjoy a privileged relationship to nature. Both...

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This section contains 9,111 words
(approx. 31 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Stacey Gottlieb
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Critical Essay by Stacey Gottlieb from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.