The Care of the Other : Humanism and the Dichotomies of Discourse in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh Dhee Sankar College

Let who says

‘The soul's a clean white paper,’ rather say,

A palimpsest, a prophets holograph

Defiled, erased and covered by a monk's,—

The apocalypse, by a Longus! poring on

Which obscene text, we may discern perhaps

Some fair, fine trace of what was written once,

Some upstroke of an alpha and omega Expressing the old scripture.

(Aurora Leigh[1] 1.824-32)

Arguably, one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's most salient characteristics as an author is her Christian humanism. When this worldview, with its roots in the Italian Renaissance, comes in conversation with the exploration of female selfhood in her magnum opus beginning and ending in Italy, Aurora Leigh, the resulting interactions of several fraught and conflicting discourses throw up abundant pointers to the Zeitgeist during its production, as also to the philosophy of its creator.

The speaking voice in this “verse novel,” from its very inception, broaches issues which are germane not only to the poem as a whole, but also to the founding discourse of humanism (Zak 5) on which it is largely premised : the issues of writing and selfhood.

Of writing many books there is no end;

And I who have written much in prose and verse

For others' uses, will write now for mine,

Will write...