The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 1 of 2)Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
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The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Volume 1 of 2)
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861 -- Correspondence; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence
Who will deny to the writer of such verses as these (and they
are not sparingly met with in the volume) the possession of
many of the highest qualities of the divine art? We regret
to have some restriction to add to an admission we make so
gladly. Miss Barrett is indeed a genuine poetess, of no common
order; yet is she in danger of being spoiled by over-ambition;
and of realising no greater or more final reputation than
a hectical one, like Crashaw's. She has fancy, feeling,
imagination, expression; but for want of some just equipoise
or other, between the material and spiritual, she aims
at flights which have done no good to the strongest, and
therefore falls infinitely short, except in such detached
passages as we have extracted above, of what a proper exercise
of her genius would infallibly reach.... Very various, and
in the main beautiful and true, are the minor poems. But the
entire volume deserves more than ordinary attention.
[Footnote 40: June 24, 1838.]
The 'Atlas,'[41] another paper whose literary judgments were highly
esteemed at that date, was somewhat colder, and dwelt more on
the faults of the volume, but added nevertheless that 'there are
occasional passages of great beauty, and full of deep poetical
feeling. In 'The Romaunt of Margret' it detected the influence of
Tennyson--a suggestion which Miss Barrett repudiated rather warmly;
and it concluded with the declaration that the authoress 'possesses
a fine poetical temperament, and has given to the public, in this
volume, a work of considerable merit.'
[Footnote 41: June 23, 1838.]
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