Undisciplining Elizabeth Barrett Browning Dashboard
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"Destruction of the Roehampton Estate," Adolphe Duperly (1833); Portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London, 1889-90)
Throughout her life, the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (hereafter EBB) critiqued not only American slavery but also European complicity in the slave trade. From her juvenilia, represented in the unpublished “The African” (early 1820s) to her more mature pieces, such as the anonymously published "The Appeal" (1833), “The Runaway Slave of Pilgrim’s Point” (1848), “Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave” (1850), and “A Curse for a Nation” (1856), EBB’s work is particularly notable for centering the experiences and voices of enslaved people themselves and drawing attention to their objectification and oppression. This COVE edition seeks to explore the nuances of such power relations, seen in both the dynamics of EBB, a white woman descended from a plantation-owning family, writing about the plight of enslaved people, and the broader system of racial inequity that persists into the present.
Galleries, Timelines, and Maps
Richard Barrett (1789-1839) was a cousin of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and a prominent political figure for much of his life, speaking in parliament on behalf of the Jamaican legislature on matters concerning emancipation. Though he was himself the owner of two sugar plantations in St. James, he had a reputation for nonviolence towards the enslaved people who worked on the family's land, a point potentially supported by the sparing of one of the plantation houses, Greenwood Great House, during the 1831 uprisings. Barrett shared this story of a runaway slave with a young EBB, who then used it as the inspiration for her unpublished narrative poem, "The African."
Material sourced from The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's original manuscript of "The African," completed in the early 1820s. Manuscript found at Baylor's Armstrong Browning Library.
This map includes paratextual information about significant places that help to illuminate and contextualize Elizabeth Barrett Browning's anti-slavery poetry.
This timeline tracks key events in the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her anti-slavery work, and the fight for abolition across the British Empire.