SOURCE: "'No name . . . My father! more belov'd than thine !': The Daughter's First Muse," in Elizabeth Barrett Browning, edited by Sue Roe, Harvester Press, 1986, pp. 23-54.

In the following essay, Leighton examines the role of Browning's father in both her early poetry, in which he is a central figure, and her mature poetry, in which he is conspicuously absent.

For 'neath thy gentleness of praise,
 My Father! rose my early lays!
 And when the lyre was scarce awake,
 I lov'd its strings for thy lov'd sake;
 Woo'd the kind Muses—but the while
 Thought only how to win thy smile—
 ('To My Father on His Birthday', 33-8)

The story of Mr Barrett's emotional and financial domination of his family is well known. It was not only his favourite oldest daughter, but all his eleven children who suffered from the extraordinary rigidity of his rule against marriage. There was...