About the Author

Dorothy Mermin is professor in and chair of the Department of English at Cornell University.

Reviews

In this, the first thorough treatment in nearly 30 years, Barrett Browning emerges as a poet fully worthy of serious critical attention today. While primarily concerned with texts, Mermin makes extensive use of biography in her examination of the poet's early work. She views Barrett Browning's career as a struggle to ``find woman's place in the central tradition of poetry.'' To justify her subject's role as ``foremother'' to the major Victorian poets, Mermin pays close attention to the ballads, sonnet sequence, and political poems, giving lengthy treatment to Aurora Leigh as a major 19th-century feminist document. A welcome regard for poetics demonstrates that the poetry is drenched in images of maternity, sexuality, and death. Recommended for all academic collections and larger public libraries.-- Barbara J. Dunlap, City Coll., CUNY