There has never been a love like the one you will read in this article: Who is Elizabeth Barrett?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (6 March 1806 - 29 June 1861) was an English poet. She is considered one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. His poems were popular throughout his life in England and the United States. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.

In her work Flush: A Biography, published in 1933, Virginia Woolf described the love of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning through the eyes of Barrett's dog, Flush.

Elizabeth Barrett's life and marriage story

Elizabeth Barrett was the eldest of 12 children from a love marriage. His parents were very wealthy and devoted to their children. Elizabeth could read and write at the age of four. At the age of six, she could discuss the novels she read. At the age of eleven, she began writing extremely meaningful poems. By the time she was fourteen, her father had already proudly published his daughter's extraordinary poems. Elizabeth was well educated enough to be able to read and write in four languages.

When she was fifteen years old, she fell off a horse and damaged her spine, and she had enough pain that she needed morphine from time to time for the rest of her life. She devoted her time to reading and writing poetry. She was a well-known and loved poet in her thirties.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime and frequently anthologised after her death. Her work received renewed attention following the feminist scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s, and greater recognition of women writers in English.

On the other hand, another wonderful child was growing up in England in those years. Robert Browning, who wrote his first book of poetry at the age of twelve, grew up at the feet of his parents, who talked about literature in a house with 6,000 books. His mother was a musician. Educated in four languages, Robert could compose music and write plays. He became a very popular and read poet and writer in a short time.

As you can see, they were both extremely cultured people. Naturally, they were following each other.

The story began with Elizabeth Barrett scribbling lines of praise to her friends about a newly published work by Browning. Elizabeth called Browning "one of the best poets of our age." When Browning was told what he had written, the young poet gathered his courage and wrote a letter to Elizabeth Barrett. The following lines stood out in his letter: “Dear Miss Barrett, I love with all my heart your poems and their fresh, playful music, their rich language, their delicate touches, and the bold ideas they contain.”

This correspondence continued. Robert Browning wrote a total of 573 letters in one year. These letters, their responses, and the poems within them are considered literary wonders. After a while, Robert Browning began to write openly about his love for Elizabeth Barrett, whom he had never seen in his life. Elizabeth wrote that she should not write such things and that if she ever talked about her love for him again, she would stop corresponding with him. Barrett restrained himself for a while and began to write more carefully and deeply. So much so that Elizabeth wrote the following to her confidant, Mrs. Martin: “He no longer confesses his love to me openly, but he writes so elegantly and delicately that it is impossible not to understand what he means.”

Finally, Robert Browning came to visit Elizabeth and proposed marriage as soon as he saw her. Elizabeth Barrett sat the excited young man in front of her and explained one by one why it was not possible for him to marry. First of all, she had promised her father not to marry in order to divide the inheritance and prevent the wealth from passing to another surname. He did not have a huge fortune of his own. She was also uncomfortable. He had constant pain and difficulty walking. Moreover, she was almost 40 years old, she probably couldn't give birth to children. She couldn't even handle the demands of being a wife. However, Robert was 6 years younger than her...

All this did not convince Robert Browning, and eventually Elizabeth came out to her family. When her father angrily said that he would disown his daughter, Elizabeth got up from her sick bed, the two lovers went to Italy together and got married there in a small church in the presence of two witnesses. The young couple lost a huge fortune, but they lived a legendary love for 15 years.

As two bards, they produced magnificent works. A friend of theirs who visited them in Italy wrote the following in his memoirs: “It is not easy to imagine a happier home and a more perfect marriage than theirs. “This unity stems not only from the rare qualities that each of them possesses, but also from the fact that they are perfectly suited to each other.”

They first read what they wrote to each other, corrected and nourished each other with love and care. It is said that once Elizabeth asked her husband in front of her friends what he meant by a verse he wrote. Robert looked at what he had written and replied: “At first only God and I knew what I meant. Now I guess only God knows.” And they laughed together.

Elizabeth had several miscarriages and later gave birth to their only son. I should point out that the boy who will be called Pen Browning received an excellent education and later became a well-known painter.

Elizabeth Browning died at the age of 55, after a long illness, in the arms of her husband, who had never withheld his love from her. There was only one thing he said to his wife before he died; “Beautiful!” Robert Browning wrote of those last moments: “She died smiling, happy, like a little girl.”