SOURCE: "A Cinderella Among the Muses: Barrett Browning and the Ballad Tradition," in Elizabeth Barrett Browning, St. Martin's Press, 1995, pp. 94-133.

In the following essay, Stone evaluates the poetic innovations of Browning's ballads in the context of the Romantic ballad revival and its tradition in Victorian England.

In their 1867 edition of Bishop Percy's folio of ballads, John H. Hales and Frederick J. Furnivall picture the ballad before the Romantic revival as a 'Cinderella' among the Muses:

She had never dared to think herself beautiful. No admiring eyes ever came near her in which she might mirror herself. She had never dared to think her voice sweet. . . . She met with many enemies, who clamoured that the kitchen was her proper place, and vehemently opposed her admission into any higher room. The Prince was long in finding her out. The sisters put many an obstacle between him and her. . . . But...